Scourge of God
by razer666L
Summary: When Louise summons Saito, someone else is pulled in. A Systems Alliance soldier from a different reality than Saito's and he is not happy being pulled away from the ongoing Reaper War on Earth. Yet his arrival alone sets a chain reaction that will determine the fate of both Halkeginia and the lands beyond in this magical world.
1. Chapter 1: The Day of Summoning

**_I want all of you to know that both the Mass Effect universe and Zero no Tsukaima world of this crossover are slightly AU than the canon. If there are some errors in it, please let me know so I can correct them._**

* * *

As predictable by every student in the field, an explosion was created every time Louise cast a spell, although this one was much powerful than any that she had ever caused and had everyone almost knocked off to the ground. Large dark cloud and smoke obscured their vision of what kind of familiar Louise had summoned in front of them.

However, none of them realized that there were two unknown objects thrown out from the resulted explosion and they were completely shrouded with thick smoke as each landed meters away from the student gathering at the opposite direction.

As she was coughing, the black smoke started to thin out and Louise did her best to fan away the cloud in order to take a first look upon her summoned familiar. Louise had her heart full of hope and great expectation from this; she would never be called "Zero" from anyone else again. A slow gust of wind dispersed the already thinning smoke, and it revealed the audiences, including Louise, the strangest thing they had ever seen; which made her and crowd stood in silence.

What was in front of them was unmistakably human; a teenage boy at that who was sitting on the field which appeared to be the same age as the rest of the students. He was wearing a blue, loose, long-sleeved jacket with raised collar, a pair of dark blue pants made of unknown material and a pair of blue, white-colored soled shoes. Furthermore, the boy also had short, slightly spiked black hair with a pair blue eyes, along with a face that seem unlike of any ethnicity normally found in Halkeginia. He even carried a black bag that was secured with two straps that went over his shoulders.

The teenager was groaning as he scratch the back of his head with his eyes closed. He began looking around warily as soon as the boy opened his eyes.

"What the... where... where am I?" The boy asked.

The sound of footsteps were produced in front of him and as his head turned to the front and looked up, he saw a young girl underneath a indigo cloak, wearing a long-sleeved white blouse and a gray pleated skirt. She also wore a pair of long black socks and a pair of black shoes. The young girl had a long curly pink hair with a matching color for her eyes, along with the facial feature of a Caucasian. Which could mean she was either from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America or any nation that had Caucasian majority or minority.

"Who are you?" The girl asked intently.

"Who am I? Saito... I'm Hiraga Saito," he answered. Suddenly, a realization came to Saito's already confused mind: How could he understood her language with ease?

The silence occurred in the courtyard that lasted for seconds was finally broken by the voice of a random young girl among the crowd. "Hah, Louise the Zero summoned a commoner!"

Much of Louise's classmates began laughing at the amusing occurrence before their eyes; some of them were laughing almost hysterically. The fact that 'Louise the Zero' had summoned a commoner as her familiar was priceless for them.

"Looks like a commoner is a perfect familiar for you, right Zero?" Guiche jeered from the crowd.

"Louise has never cease to "amazed" us, as we expected from the Zero here," Kirche laughed mockingly.

"What were you thinking, Louise? Calling a commoner with the 'Summon Servant' ritual," Montmorency asked as she started to laugh like everyone else.

An expression mixed of anger, frustration and disappointment began to form on Louise's face as her mouth gaped in shock at the unexpected result before her. _Did I just summoned a commoner? A COMMONER!? And he's a foreigner, no less!_ she thought to herself.

"This thing... this thing can't possibly be my familiar!" Louise angrily pointed at the teenager as she turned to Professor Colbert.

 _Wait? Did she just called me "This thing"?_ Saito thought to himself in annoyance and surprise as he frowned.

"No, this is a mistake! I-I need to fix this! Yes, I'll just summon another one," Louise said to herself, which was loud enough for the bald middle-aged teacher to hear it among the noises created by the students.

"Everyone, please be quiet!" Colbert told the students and the noises quickly subsided. He then turned his attention to Louise. "Miss Vallière."

"Yes, Mister Colbert!"

"I'm sorry but I'm afraid this is something that can't be fixed easily," Colbert shook his head. "It is forbidden for one to do the summoning ritual twice; it's a holy ritual that must be followed according to our Founder's law. While summoning a commoner is unheard of, it's still a irrefutable fact that you've summoned him to your service. Therefore, this young man shall be your familiar from now on," he stated sympathetically.

"But, this is...," Louise wanted to beg her teacher before she was interrupted, while Saito curiously kept looking everything around him.

"Miss Vallière, please. Just continue with your ritual and bind your familiar," Colbert firmly, yet calmly ordered.

Louise became completely disheartened by the facts given to her as shown from her saddened expression. She finally yielded to the reality descended upon her and heeded her teacher's order. "...Yes, sir."

She turned around and walked toward Saito with a feeling of dismay, while Louise looked clearly bad-tempered just by looking at her face and body movement. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a commoner like you," Louise said as she stopped in front of Saito while glaring at him, "...so you'd better be thankful to me when I do this."

Saito could not help but noticed her cheeks turned red as the pink haired girl stared angrily at himself. _She looks... kinda cute when she's upset, though._

"Come on, Louise! Do it quickly, we wanna see it!" Kirche said aloud as other classmates jeered and giggled at Louise.

 _That Germanian brute, she'll never let me live this down after this!_ Louise, with her face turning red, stepped into Saito's personal space and knelt down to him as he leaned back cautiously. She sighed deeply and mustered all dignity she had left before Louise raised her wand and pointing it to the boy's forehead.

"Wha-what are you doing?" Saito babbled as the girl was about to do something at him.

" _My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière. Pentagon of the five elemental powers, grant your blessings upon this humble being and bind it as my familiar._ "

She chanted the sacred spellwords and tapped the wand on his forehead once. Louise immediately grabbed Saito's cheek and pulled his head to her face, and pressed her lips upon his. Louise kept her lips there for a couple seconds, long enough for the master-familiar bond to be sealed. She then jerked back and raised to her feet, leaving the boy embarrassed, bewildered and frozen at the event that just occurred upon him.

"It's done," Louise calmly stated as she dusted the dirt from her knees. Saito quickly overcame the shock of having his first stolen by a girl he did not know in such a bold fashion.

"What did you do!? Y-y-you stole my first kiss, give it back!" He cried and a blush growing on his shocked expression as he wiped his lips with the sleeve of his jacket.

"I'm the one who's supposed to say that first! It's not like I wanted to kiss some random man or boy like you!" Louise talked back as her cheeks were also turned red.

"Congratulations, Miss Vallière. Despite you have failed the 'Summon Servant' several times, yet you've successfully performed the 'Contract Servant' on your first attempt," Colbert said happily. "Well done, well done!"

"Thank you, sir," Louise said gratefully.

"Can somebody _please_ tell me what the hell is going on?" Saito cried, desperately hoping that someone could give him some answers. If this was some kind of a bizarre cult practicing pagan magic, he needed to get out of here quickly.

Then he yelped and clutched his left hand as Saito felt something burning on it. Saito continued to wince in pain as strange letters began to appear at the back of his left hand and they were etched on his very skin, as if he was being invisibly branded.

"It's burning! Wh-what is this!?" he exclaimed as Saito held his left hand while trying to endure the pain.

"Those are runes. They are inscribed to mark you as a familiar," Louise plainly stated like it was a well known fact, with Colbert nodded in acknowledgement.

The middle-aged teacher walked forward and delicately grabbed Saito's left hand as he inspected the runes. "Well done, Miss Vallière! Your 'Servant Contract' has been formed. And a very precise contract at that," Colbert joyfully stated. However, he began to notice something peculiar of the runes but he could not figure out what it was. "Even so, I must say those are some very unique runes you have there."

Colbert then let go of Saito's hand and turned around to address the students. "Now that we all had our turn in the ritual, everyone please take the free time you've been given to bond with your new familiars. Class is dis—" Before he could finish his sentence, a sudden scream was heard across the academy's field.

 **"Aaaaarrrggghhh!"**

* * *

Everyone in the field immediately jumped at the awful scream they had just heard. They whipped their heads left and right to find the source. Another agonizing scream was produced and this time, they turned their sights to the area located several feet from their positions. What the students and Colbert saw before their widen eyes surprised them, with several gasps were produced from some of the students.

All except for Louise and Saito who were standing behind the crowd.

"Hey, what's going on?" Louise asked as she wove through the crowd, pushing them aside to see what had gotten them startled.

Saito, who was also curious of what just happened, tagged along with the petite pink haired girl. When they had finally reached the front and saw what was before them, the same surprised expression as the rest of the crowd was formed on both the master and the familiar's face.

There was a figure, which was most likely a man, crawling on his knees slowly with his right hand was clutching his lower abdomen. He wore some kind of an onyx black armor of very strange design that was unlike everyone had ever seen; it even looked like a solid and sturdy tailcoat.

While there were some metal plates bolted at some places like his chest, shoulders, waist and knees, the rest seemed like it was made of some kind of unknown flexible material. The entire armor looked like it was made to tightly fit on the person who wore it.

Furthermore, there was a set of distinctive patterns that resembled a blood-red stripe bordered with small white stripes which ran down the center of both arms, specifically at the forearms, upper arms and shoulders. His helmet covered the entire face without any visible slits or small holes; it made them wonder how this man was able breathe and see in front of him.

On his back was a short sword with no scabbard and it was attached without a belt or rope to hold it from falling to the ground. Then there were those small flat cylindrical objects and rectangular boxes attached around his belt, along with pouches on both thighs.

After a few seconds of crawling, the man finally collapsed to the ground and rolled over with his front body facing upward, while his right hand was still clutching his lower abdomen. Out of instinct, Saito quickly ran toward the armored man as soon as he fell down, which caused Louise to be surprised at her familiar's sudden reaction.

"Hey, familiar! Where do you think you're going!?" Louise shouted to her familiar as she ran after him from behind.

"Oi, are you alright?" Saito frantically asked as he knelt next to the armored man's left side as soon as he reached his spot. He seemed to be showing much pain as he was trembling erratically.

From there, Saito got a close look upon the design of his armor and gear which looked like something right out of a sci-fi franchise than a fantasy or medieval one, along with an almost worn-out emblem printed on his upper right onyx black chest plate: a snow white alphabet letter and a single digit number, along with a blood red 90 degree triangle.

 _ **N7**_

"Guh... huh... erk...," was the response Saito got from him. He could hear the man was hissing in pain and breathing hard, even though the sound was a bit muffled by the tightly sealed helmet. Saito noticed the man's right palm was pressing against his stomach rather tightly.

He gulped anxiously as Saito hesitantly grabbed the armored man's right wrist and began to lift his trembling hand from his stomach to take a look. The young Japanese boy felt a bit relieved as the armored man allowed Saito to lift his hand from the lower abdomen he was clutching.

What Saito saw instantly drained the colors from his face as he started to breathe faster and harsher than normal, almost the same as the armored man before him. He was desperately trying not to get himself passed out due to hyperventilation; it was something he always saw on television, newspapers or his favorite manga, but never he would see it up close and personal before.

There was a bullet wound in his stomach and blood were pouring out from it. It was very clear that this man needed medical attention immediately. In an instant, the gravity of the situation became dire and much more than Saito could possibly handle at the moment. _What should I do!? What should I do!? What should I do!?_

Before Saito started shouting for help after he released the armored man's hand, his left shoulder was suddenly grabbed from behind with a firm, tight grip. That grip belonged to the petite pink haired girl who had summoned Saito earlier.

"What do you think you're doing running off from your master like that, you stupid...," Louise angrily asked before she was interrupted by Saito, who was looking at her with his panicked expression.

"This guy has been shot! We need to get him to the hospital now!"

Louise stood there blinked a few times in confusion and surprise for her familiar's sudden reaction for a moment before she shifted her gaze to the armored man before her. She saw the wound he was suffering and it made her flinched as blood from the wound began to flow down from his armor plated abdomen to the grass.

Just before this, Louise's mind was primarily focused on her familiar after he ran from her side; she could not think anything else but her familiar coupled with anger over his sudden disobedience. Now, her focus was shifted to the armored man lying on the ground who was obviously injured. When her familiar started calling for help, he indirectly shattered Louise's desire to punish or reprimanding her familiar or anything related to it completely.

There were a thousand questions racing in her mind about this man's identity, origins and how did he ended up injured in the academy without anyone noticing. Several students including Colbert began moving forward, albeit slowly, toward the three from behind as curiosity took over them.

"Somebody call an ambulance or a doctor! Anyone please, he's severely injured!" Saito yelled in desperation as he looked behind toward the approaching group of students. Upon hearing the familiar's fearful yell, Colbert instantly quicken his pace toward both of them. Louise turned her head to the approaching professor, with a genuine concerned look on her face.

She wanted to tell Colbert to hurry up and use his magic to heal the man, most likely in a form of a shout. But for some reason, Louise could not let her voice coming out from her mouth. She really wanted to let her voice come out but she could not, and she did not know why. Was it because she was scared, very scared? That this was her first time experiencing and witnessing a grave situation such as the one before her?

Louise seriously wanted to help the injured man but she could not; she was a "Zero", a mage who could not cast even the simplest spell in any school of magic. No, it was more than just that, Louise was utterly failed at magic. Any spell she made would always ended up in a disastrous explosion. If Louise had magic in her, even if it was in weakest form and power, she would not hesitate to use it to save this man.

She quickly turned her head from Colbert and looked back at the armored man lying on the ground, who seemed struggling desperately of not letting death to come and take his life away. Whether it was her first time or not, Louise never felt so much hate at herself as her jaw clenched and both of her hands tightened into fists.

Louise found herself helpless. Helpless to do anything other than watched the man suffering in agonizing pain, who perhaps was dying slowly and painfully.

 _I've to do something! I need to do something but... but... Oh, Founder Brimir. Why? Why am I so... so worthless?_

Saito turned his face to the armored man's featureless blank helmet, which he instinctively knew the guy behind that black glass visor was looking at him, probably pleading Saito to help him without making a voice because he was too weak or in so much pain to say anything. Saito quickly grabbed his left hand with both of his, doing his best not to let the guy gave up his will to live.

"Oi, you're gonna be okay. H-help is on the way! Just stay with me, man!" Saito shakily cried.

As if he saw something through his opaque black glass visor, the armored man's helmet slowly turned away from Saito to his left until the helmet's left side was facing the ground. Saito knew he's not dying yet as the guy's left hand was still squeezing firmly with his hands. Then, to Saito's surprise, the armored man started to speak in a language he understood, though in an agitated manner and with an accent he could not quite place.

"Holy shit... that _thing_... is still alive..."

"Huh?" This had Saito confused a bit as he himself did not know what 'thing' this guy was referring to. When he looked over his shoulder from the right, the 'thing' that Saito saw from behind had him completely scared witless as his face paled and his eyes widen in terror.

 _What the hell is that!?_

* * *

Montmorency, who was standing far behind the crowd, was one of the students who had not left their positions after several of her classmates including her teacher Colbert decided to go check for Louise, her familiar and that man in onyx black suit of armor that had appeared out of nowhere. From the way Louise's familiar yelled after he knelt right next to that man, part of her made Montmorency think something terrible had happened.

Her small orange frog familiar, Robin, was sitting idly on her master's shoulder watching event before her progressing. As both the master and familiar were watching, Robin sensed something very off and foreboding which was closing in upon both of them. It made her fidgeting uncomfortably without Montmorency noticing what was happening to her familiar.

The frog instantly felt a highly malevolent presence coming from behind. It turned around and Robin immediately croaking loudly and repeatedly in fear at the 'thing' she saw in front of her eyes, warning her master of the impending danger.

"Robin, what's wrong?" Montmorency asked, wondering what made her familiar suddenly got agitated. When she turned around to see what was behind her, Montmorency's face was drained of all color and she instantly adopted an expression of both panic and dread.

Several feet in front of her was a rather large and very grotesque bipedal creature that vaguely resembled a naked human corpse which stood seven feet tall. It was predominantly covered in grayish or ungodly dried pale blue muscular flesh, with the occasional strands of metal and wires interwoven with eerie blue, glowing points of light on most parts of its body. Blunt metal spikes jutted out from its shoulders and forearms, with its chest and abdomen were protected with some kind of visibly bolted, simple, crude and distorted dark blue metallic armor plates.

But the most revolting and terrifying feature of this living corpse was its entire head and face; its pale white skin was decaying all over its head and face, bald and devoid of hair. Its eyes were glowing in bright icy blue with no eyelids, noseless, holes in its fleshy cheeks. The mouth was lipless to where it revealed its yellow teeth with black smudges and dark grey gums. Aside from those, small glowing blue-gray wires were covered all over its decaying face that almost resembled a highly repulsive fleshy skull.

She did not know that in front of her was a special type of husk derived from a human and mutated by Reaper technology.

It was a _Pariah_ and it was fixing its unnerving glowing blue eyes at the terror-stricken Montmorency. Then it let out a lifeless, long moan at her.

Which caused the ringlet-haired blonde young girl to cried out a spine-chilling scream.

"KYAAAAAHHHHH!"

* * *

 ** _The next chapter will explain how both the N7 Operator and the husk ended up in the ZnT world, why the N7 Operator couldn't just activate his omni-tool and administer the medi-gel to treat his injury, and why he didn't have guns with him in the first place._**

 ** _However, the speed of the update could be sporadic and unpredictable because sometimes I can be very busy with stuffs in real life. Be patient, 'K?_**


	2. Chapter 2: The Slayer Part I

**_This is the second chapter of my first_ Mass Effect-Zero no Tsukaima _crossover fic._**

 ** _The ME 'verse part of this crossover is slightly AU than canon. If there are some errors or contradiction from lore in it, please let me know so I can correct them._**

* * *

N7 Slayer Staff Lieutenant Imran Zakaria was fighting for his life in the ruined streets of Bastogne, Belgium while clutching his abdomen with his left hand, and at the same time holding an N7 Eagle heavy pistol on his right. He had be lying to himself if Imran did not begin to feel a slight sensation of pain on his wounded stomach.

Hissing lightly, the pain was slowly growing stronger by each passing second as the anesthetic effect of medi-gel began to worn off gradually because of the blow.

"Goddamn it! I need to get out of here!" He exclaimed to himself, groaning in pain as he leaned over the wall made out of clay bricks. After he ejected a spent thermal clip from the pistol and inserted a new one, Imran bent down panting for air, he was very tired due to the biotics he used on a not-so-ordinary husk.

What was once a routine civilian evacuation assignment for the team, where they had done several missions such as this on Earth, unexpectedly turned into a desperate struggle to survive and escape from a town full of husks alive. But only him alone, as the rest had..."left" to a better place.

 _Better place..._ He looked up and stared blankly at the gloomy blue sky, contemplating. Imran could only pray their souls would rest in peace in the afterlife, as their corpses back on the mortal world were desecrated, changed and reanimated into soulless, undead organo-synthetic pawns of the Reapers.

* * *

Half an hour ago, he and a squad of two Soldier-class Alliance Marines, along with some of the local militias and police officers, held off a Reaper attack on the evacuation point in the town center to allow the remaining civilians in Bastogne to flee from the onslaught via Kodiak shuttles. Imran was manning a heavy machine gun turret while others were armed with a variety of firearms to hold their defense positions.

After the civilians were successfully evacuated, it was the defenders' turn to wait for their transportation to pick them up from the town, which was had already lost to the Reapers. A few minutes later, another shuttle, which was slightly bigger and heavily armored than the regular Kodiaks, appeared over the heavily smoked daytime sky of Bastogne at a distance.

Yet their hopes and expectations of getting out of Bastogne were completely shattered in seconds when two flying worm-like beasts with a pair wings and insectoid legs caught up with the Kodiak and clamped on the shuttle.

Continuous beam of lasers produced from the Harvesters' mouths began to bore onto the shuttle's heavily armored hull, completely ignoring its kinetic barriers. Explosions were formed from the same hull the Harvesters' lasers were firing onto, and the shuttle immediately fell from the sky and crashed into a five-storey building, which killed not just the pilot but also two Harvesters that did not manage to get themselves off the shuttle.

However, things started to get worse for them when they spotted a Harvester flying unusually towards them at high altitude.

As the Harvester was flying directly above them, it dropped a cylindrical object the size of a 20th century oil barrel to their position. Everyone instantly knew what that flying husk just had dropped on them and they immediately abandoned their defensive positions, running as fast and as far as they could.

At the same time, four steerable fins were unfolded from the "object" and a thruster was ignited at its rear, increasing the velocity of its fall. When it was about a meter from the ground, the proximity fuze sensed radar returns from the surface and triggered the explosive device within the "object".

It then exploded with a blast so powerful the shockwave it produced thrown everyone several meters away from the blast zone across the town center. Some of the militia who were running not far enough did not stand a chance as they were killed instantly by the shockwave before they even hit the ground; the blast pounded their internal organs into mush, limbs within torn from sockets, while the heat burnt their flesh and flammable fabrics.

The N7 Slayer laid on the ground with ears ringing even inside his sealed helmet, head pounding like a drum for seconds before he stood up staggered like a drunken man with his vision blurred. As his sight began to return to normal, a group of Cannibals approaching from the front meters away caught Imran's eyes. He quickly grabbed the N7 Eagle pistol from his belt's magnetic holster and fired several headshots at them.

Then, something moved in Imran's right peripheral vision, coinciding with a ping on his radar which was projected on a heads-up-display over his helmet's visor.

He turned towards the direction of the ping and what Imran got in front of him was another Cannibal. Before he could press the trigger, the batarian husk fired a five-round burst of heavy caliber bullets at him. The first four bullets contacted with Imran's kinetic barrier and it instantly collapsed, while the fifth bored through the armored plating of his abdomen.

As the N7 Slayer stumbled and fell back-first to the ground, a shotgun blast thrown the Cannibal backward with a gaping hole in its chest.

It was his squadmate Gunnery Chief Chaim Levy, who obviously survived the bomb blast, killed the batarian husk. He quickly administered medi-gel to his commanding officer's wound and lifted him off the ground as Chaim slung Imran's arm over his shoulders for support.

Soon after Imran learned the fate of his other squadmate Corporal Arvind Srinivasa Krishnan and other militias that survived the explosion - where they were mowed down by overwhelming fire from the Marauders - he told Chaim they need to find a working vehicle to escape Bastogne.

The marine wholeheartedly agreed and carried his wounded officer through the town's battered street, even though Imran futilely argued with him that he could walk or run on his own without help.

After advancing several meters through the streets, another life was taken away by the Reapers.

Just as Imran pulled his arm away from Chaim's hold, a rifle shot lanced through the Marine's kinetic barriers and armor plate from behind, and out through his armored chest. In an instant, Imran turned around and created a biotic _Barrier Sphere_ around himself with his left hand, while the other grabbed the N7 Eagle pistol and aimed high at a four-storey building roughly 50 meters before him.

His barrier sphere rippled as another shot was fired at him and through such shot Imran was able to pinpoint where the sniper fire was coming from; it came from a roof of the building in front of him and there was figure standing up there with its weapon aimed directly at him. Imran knew there was only one type of husk that could act as snipers for Reaper ground forces.

The **_Stalker_** \- a husk derived from a salarian corrupted and transformed by Reaper tech. Stalkers possessed a pure mechanical right arm instead of the repulsive bio-synthetic fusion on most parts of their bodies, which could retract a long, telescopic rifle barrel from its palm, and had the equivalent firepower of the M-92 Mantis. They even had a retractable blade on the left forearm for close combat.

The Reapers had not attack the primary salarian space at Annos Basin yet, but they could obtain them from those that live in the Terminus Systems or from captured STG operators, volunteers and mercenaries on the battlefield across the galaxy.

He aimed the pistol directly onto the Stalker far in front of him, and rapidly fired four successive shots at it. Three bullets whizzed passed its head, barely hit it by several centimeters, yet the last one landed perfectly into its forehead, blowing off the upper top of the salarian husk's head completely.

Soon after the husk was neutralized, Imran quickly checked up his fallen squadmate; his body was not moving, not even a small twitch nor a tiny whimper heard coming out of his mouth. He activated his omni-tool to inspect his vital signs. There was nothing, flatline; it was a clean shot to the heart. There was nothing he could to save Chaim, he was already dead before he hit the ground.

To say the N7 Operator was overwhelmed by sadness, anger and guilt over Chaim's death was a bit of an understatement, but Imran painfully knew he would get over it soon. As the only human left in the besieged town, he must get out and head to Brussels to meet with the rest of the resistance forces there quickly.

Imran salvaged anything useful for survival on Chaim's lifeless body before moving on: extra thermal clips, food rations, a couple of grenades, as well as his omni-tool filled with both medi-gel and omni-gel. As he was about to recover the dog tags from around the Marine's neck, the N7 Operator heard a distinctive loud hum from behind, at the other side of the town.

When Imran looked behind his left shoulder, he felt as if his lungs became numb when he just could not believe his luck was going to be this _bad_.

A rather large bulbous-shaped, almost skeletal-looking dark purple vehicle with a turret on top appeared around the corner of a ruined building, hovering inches above the ground. It had same eerie blue lights dotting all over place of which you could find on every husk.

 ** _Despoiler_** \- a Reaper tank dedicated to combat organic forces' main battle tanks and other armored vehicles when Reaper Destroyers were not around, or when Brutes and Banshees were inadequate enough to deal with them. Despoilers could also alter their role into self-propelled artillery as its main gun could be reconfigured into a howitzer in matter of seconds.

The Reaper tank turned its main gun to the only human alive in front of it, intending to obliterate him instead of capture the human alive.

The moment Imran saw its large gun aimed at him, he instantly left Chaim's body and made a dash towards a convenience store on the right side of the road. He then executed a biotic _Charge_ to the store's large open window, just as the Despoiler fired its gun, except it missed its target and the round only hit a building several meters in front the tank.

After the N7 Operator materialized inside the store, he quickly ran off towards the backdoor which led out onto an alley. As he got out, Imran ran along the straight alley avoiding toppled trash cans and piles of fallen bricks from the walls of both sides.

As he was several meters from reaching the alleyway exit, a ping suddenly appeared on his radar and something tackled him from his left side, and pinned him against the wall.

* * *

A generic husk jumped out from a hole on the wall, grabbed Imran around his waist and pushed him against the wall next to him. The husk then discharged high-voltage of electricity from its body, sending waves of pain all over the N7 Slayer.

"AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!" Imran was jerking and screaming in excruciating pain as the electricity flowed all over his body. His muscles immediately contracted to the point he could hardly move his limbs to shove this husk away.

Despite he was struggling to regain control of the tightly clenched muscles, Imran gathered all his strength and sunk both thumbs deep into the husk's eyes while the rest of the fingers grabbed hold of the back of its head. Its hold around the waist began to loosen, allowing Imran to take the next move.

"GET OFF OF ME!" He violently pushed the husk away from him, releasing its hold around Imran's waist.

As the husk screamed and put its hands over the gouged eyeballs, the N7 Slayer wasted no time to grab his monomolecular blade, magnetically attached on his back with his left hand, and slayed the organo-synthetic undead by decapitating its head while cutting off its hands in the process.

"Aw shit..." he cursed and hissed at the searing pain as Imran reattached the blade to its place before he knelt on one knee. The pain surged all over him felt like he was stunned by a taser back when he was in basic soldier training. He could feel his limbs were trembling because of the pain.

But the one he felt earlier was more powerful, quite similar to an _Overload_ tech attack.

 _Wait a minute..._ As if he realized something from the husk's earlier attack, Imran immediately raised his right forearm and tried to activate his omni-tool. What came into his sight was a small rectangular orange holographic display hovering over his forearm, with several words in bold red letters and a timer in it. _Oh no no no no no no no no no!_

 _ **Omni-tool is experiencing major malfunction. System will reboot in:**_ _ **  
**_

Those were the words appearing on the screen. Like an _Overload_ , the husk's electrical blast also acted as an EMP attack that could overload shields and electronic equipment such as the omni-tool. All firearms and most electronic components in most armor suits would not be affected by the blast as they were designed to be completely hardened against EMP. The timer, on the other hand, was counting down from the twentieth minute as Imran saw the time was at;

 _ **19:19...**_

 _ **19:18...**_

 _ **19:17...**_

 _ **19:16...**_

 _ **19:15...**_

"What the fuck..." Imran exasperated. He could not believe this; no matter how advanced your omni-tool was, they were still vulnerable to an _Overload_ charge and required time for full system reboot.

Usually, a reboot would take one to five minutes should it was normal _Overload_. But the husk's electrical blast was not normal; the more powerful the EMP charge, the greater the damage it would inflict upon the gadget. This meant it would take more time for his omni-tool to reboot its systems. It was going to take a while for him to wait for the omni-tool to finish rebooting.

His HUD over the visor was flickering but damage was minimal as the letters and numbers on the display were still readable. Imran discovered the HUD showed his kinetic barriers' strength was at zero percent; no doubt it was due to the husk's electric blast. He had to rely on his biotic _Barriers_ to do most of the protection for now while waiting for his shields to recover in a minute or two.

" _Grraaagghh..._ "

As he was standing up, Imran heard a husk's growl came from his front. He looked up and a sudden chill came down his spine as he saw one particular husk from the large hole on the wall before him, one that was almost on the same threat level as Banshees, Brutes, Scions, and Praetorians.

A **_Pariah_** \- which was derived from a human that acted as an engineer-class support unit and hunter-gatherer in the Reaper army, fighting along side with frontline Reaper troops. Their main task was to capture targets with an anti-personnel omni-net launched from their omni-tool. Furthermore, Pariahs also armed with an M-27 Scimitar shotgun and an M-12 Locust submachine gun for offensive purposes.

These husks were not only heavily armored, but they were heavily shielded as well, especially at their heads.

The human husk raised its right arm, with a dark purple omni-tool activated on it, aiming at the N7 Slayer standing before it. Knowing what the Pariah was about to do, Imran quickly rolled aside to the right just an omni-net was launched from the Pariah's omni-tool. The net missed its mark as it landed and stuck onto the wall.

The human husk then unholstered a shotgun from the back of its waist and began to walk toward the hole.

The moment Imran saw the front end of the shotgun sticking out of the hole, he grabbed his heavy pistol and fired at the shotgun. The shot created a hole upon the weapon's side barrel, with fragments from the shotgun flying in all directions at high speed, rendered the Pariah's gun useless.

The human husk threw its damaged Scimitar shotgun away and produced a submachine gun instead. It quickly stepped out of the large hole, raised its gun to its left and fired a salvo of bullets at the N7 Slayer, who just in time managed to dive into cover behind a pile of bricks. For a few seconds, the human husk stopped firing its weapon as the gun had reached its heat limit, which prompted the Pariah to eject a steaming thermal clip from its submachine gun.

As soon as Imran heard distinctive cocking sound of a gun ejecting its spent heat sink, he quickly rose from his cover and rapidly fired his heavy pistol at the Pariah's chest. The N7 Eagle's powerful shots staggered the Pariah slightly as the bullets impacted its shields with high kinetic energy transfer.

The human husk, unexpectedly, roared and immediately charged toward Imran just as its shields ruptured and the bullets hit its heavy armor. The Pariah then delivered a powerful punch to the N7 Slayer's gut which sent him flying half across the alleyway.

An "Ooof!" was uttered just as Imran landed to the ground and gasped for air.

Intense sharp pain instantly shot through his stomach but not because the Pariah punched him in the gut so hard. No, that fucking Pariah hit exactly where the temporarily medi-gel sealed bullet wound should be in his abdomen. Struggled to ignore the pain, he looked up and saw the husk in front of him was walking toward him with its shield had not restored yet.

 _HELL NO!_ He screamed loudly in his thought. Anger suddenly began to surge over Imran as he did not come this far to get killed in action- _By a motherfucking husk, in this motherfucking town!_

He got other things, very crucial things he wanted to get done before he died. No way, this was too soon! Too soon for Imran to meet his untimely demise. His pain became an afterthought as soon as his fury flow over.

His biotics flared intensely all over his body and Imran's right hand shot out a mass effect field over the Pariah. He used his biotics to _Lift_ the heavy husk into the air and violently tossed it aside to the nearby wall at his left side. The husk dropped its gun the moment its body hit the wall.

The old brick wall cracked under the strong impact of a Pariah's back upon its solid surface. As the mass effect field residue still lingered upon the human husk, Imran hastily released a biotic _Throw_ at the Pariah, triggering a biotic explosion where the force of the blast threw the husk into the same wall behind it, creating a rather large hole in the wall.

But he was not finished yet, Imran pulled a frag grenade from his belt and threw it into the hole of the wall. An explosion ensued and Imran believed that husk would be good as dead. There was no way it could had survived from two different, but powerful and fatal explosion in a single row.

He slowly got up to his feet, clutching his abdomen with his left hand, and at the same time holding an N7 Eagle heavy pistol on his right. He had be lying to himself if Imran did not begin to feel a slight sensation of pain on his wounded stomach.

Hissing lightly, the pain was slowly growing stronger by each passing second as the anesthetic effect of medi-gel began to worn off gradually because of the blow.

"Goddamn it! I need to get out of here!" He said to himself, groaning in pain as he leaned over the wall made out of clay bricks. After he ejected a spent thermal clip from the pistol and inserted a new one, Imran bent down panting for air, he was very tired due to the biotics he used on the Pariah.

He then looked up and stared blankly at the gloomy blue sky, contemplating over the recent, unfortunate events happened to the men and women fought beside him earlier.

* * *

Then, out of the blue, Imran heard a very soft sound, like a whine tone created by a finger rubbing around an empty wine glass's rim, ringing in the air. Imran looked to his left to find the source of that particular sound. Nothing, he turned to his right and what Imran saw before his sight truly astonished him.

"What... the hell?" Before him was a large, glowing and elliptical green... disk? Orb?

He did not know what it was but it was hovering beside him. Imran took a cautious step towards it, the glowing green... "thing". Whatever it was called, it was gleaming and it let out the same soft whine hum.

He slowly, and tentatively, reached his right hand to the green "thing". Imran put his hand into it and felt nothing happened to it. He wished his omni-tool was still operational so that could run a scan on this anomaly and report his findings to Alliance Command.

"Well, this thing doesn't look like it came out of Reaper tech..." He whispered as he looked on.

As the N7 Slayer was occupied examining the green "thing" appeared before him, a dried pale blue right hand with small blue-gray wires on it reached out from a large hole of a wall, several meters behind him. The hand placed itself onto the rim of the wall's hole, with its fingers clenched tightly to it.

Imran pulled his hand out from the 'thing' and did not see any damage nor anything unusual on his armored right hand. Not even a single odd sensation was felt. As Imran flexed his empty fingers as if to ensure nothing happened to them, a sudden excruciating pain shot through his abdomen.

"Gaaahhh!" Imran exclaimed in pain as he instinctively put his right hand onto his injured abdomen. This time the pain was so much for him to bear to the point where his legs started to tremble. Imran began to knelt on one knee because of the agony that was overwhelming him.

He even began to whimper due to it, loud enough to be heard up to a few feet by anyone with a good hearing. Even his breathing started to sound harsher. After a few seconds, Imran slowly stood upright despite of his legs that were shaking vigorously. Then, his eyes caught a "ping" that abruptly appeared on his HUD's radar, which was dangerously close to him.

...Behind his back.

 _Ya Allah..._ His heart began to race rapidly, his breathing was immediately getting faster, and his stomach was clenching in apprehension. Imran spun around and saw the tall human husk, standing with small patches of faint embers all over its shoulders and armored chest; it survived the frag grenade's blast almost unscathed.

 **" _Raaawwwwwrrrrr!_ "** The Pariah roared loudly and charged towards Imran without delay.

He instantly raised his gun at the approaching Pariah and fired rapidly at the upper part of its body, especially its head. Bullets slammed onto the Pariah's shielded head and it still did not collapse. Hell, the headshots did not even stagger the human husk by a little.

Imran was about to dodge its attack when its hands made its way to the N7 Slayer's shoulders, pushing him into the green "thing". The attack and the immense momentum created from it had caused Imran to suddenly let go of the N7 Eagle heavy pistol from his hand in the process.

As the gun landed on the ground with a thud, both Imran and the Pariah were nowhere to be seen in the ruined alleyway in Bastogne. They literally disappeared into thin air.

...and so was the green "thing".

* * *

 ** _The next chapter will take time for to update because I'm fairly busy with my university assignments, which could take a toll on my passion to continue this story. It may take two weeks, a month or two. I don't know._**

 ** _That's why I wrote in the Author's Note's last chapter that the update speed could be sporadic and unpredictable due to the stuffs I've to do in real life._**

 ** _Please leave some reviews after reading this chapter. Any feedback (except flames) will be appreciated. Your reviews will be the fuel I need the most to drive my passion to continue writing this fic._**


	3. Chapter 3: The Slayer Part II

**_The ME 'verse part of this crossover is slightly AU than canon because of the appearance of fanmade (by me) Reaper units in the last two chapters. If there are some errors or contradiction from lore in it, please let me know so I can correct them._**

* * *

"Hey, who's that guy? Is he a knight?"

"How did he get inside without being noticed by the guards?"

"That armor he's wearing, it doesn't look like any Tristainian armor I've ever seen."

"Do you think he's alright? He seems in a bad shape to me."

"He might be an elf or something... but truthfully, I don't know what he looks like inside that helmet."

Nearly every student in the courtyard were whispering with each other, trying to figure out the event that was happening in front of them. There were many speculations thrown and shared among them, and their moment of curiosity quickly changed into anxiety when Louise's commoner familiar started to shout for help, something about the mysterious armored man was 'injured' and pronounced an unfamiliar word that they did not quite understood its meaning.

That was when they saw Professor Colbert hasten his pace to those three and the students assumes the situation was actually very serious than they expected.

"Malicorne! Guiche! Go inside and find a healer now!" Colbert turned around and urgently ordered both students. Both of them quickly nodded and they ran hurriedly into the main tower of the academy.

Among the students that were watching the event intently far away from them were Kirche and her friend Tabitha, with both of their familiars sitting next to them.

"Hey, Tabitha? What do you think is happening there?" Kirche looked below to her friend who was standing near at her left side.

"Bad." Tabitha stated with quiet and emotionless voice close to a whisper, as she gazed attentively at the mysterious armored individual who was accompanied by Louise and her human familiar.

The Germanian arched an eyebrow at this. "Eh? How bad are we talking about here?"

"Serious."

"Kyui! Kyui! Kyui kyui kyui!" At that moment, Tabitha's dragon familiar Sylphid started to squealed loudly and it started to behave restlessly, flapping its wings furiously as though in agitation. Its sudden behavior startled both girls with Kirche yelped in surprise, in contrast with the dragon's master who did not make a sound or any slight movement.

Both Kirche and Tabitha quickly turned their head around and looked up at the dragon familiar. "What's wrong with your familiar, Tabitha?"

Tabitha's eyes were slightly widen as Sylphid continued to squeal nervously, as if she understood what the dragon was saying. For the first time since Kirche befriended with Tabitha, she instinctively heard her saying with a tone that was not in a way she usually heard, despite the calm and emotionless masks that covered her voice. There was a hint of surprise in it but not in a good way.

" _Trouble._ "

...And that was when everybody heard a girl's spine-chilling scream, which came not too far from where the students were standing.

"KYAAAAAHHHHH!"

Everyone in the field swiftly turned their heads toward the direction they heard the scream was coming from. When they turned and saw the cause, both students and their teacher, along with the human familiar became gripped with terror that was sown all over their faces.

"WHA-WHAT IS THAT THING!?" A random male student shouted in a mix of surprise and horror.

"MONSTER!" A female student yelled.

"WHAT IS IT DOING HERE!?"

"RUN!"

"AAAAAHHHHH!"

All of the students and their familiars ran back away from the monster as Colbert move in front of the downed armored individual to keep him safe, with both hands gripping the staff tightly and he quickly breathe in. Tabitha, on the other hand, stood behind the teacher and in parallel to the armored man.

Saito was frozen in intense fear while kneeling with his back facing the N7 Slayer lying behind him, while Louise and Kirche stood back far away with the rest of the students but with a front row view.

In truth, they were very terrified by this. It was common knowledge among mages that necromancy was possible through specific water magic spells, but its practice was highly forbidden and deemed blasphemous by the Church's law. But that _thing_ before them... Could necromancy create such appalling abomination?

The seven-foot tall repulsive looking, pale blue-gray humanoid corpse with wires, metal plates and eerie glowing blue lights all over it, was standing several meters in front of the terror-stricken and trembling Montmorency. She lost her balance and fell to the ground after she backed off a few steps. The Pariah was walking slowly towards the fearful girl, it outstretched its left arm as if the human husk wanted to reach her, to grab hold, and take her for _ascension_.

"Run, Miss Montmorency! RUN!" the bald professor shouted at her, told the girl to move away from that...that... By the Founder, that grotesque monster was nothing he had ever seen before in his life! Not even the latest bestiary ever mentioned anything that resembled a creature like this!

Colbert was afraid to make any sudden move as who knew how that thing would react and Miss Montmorency was there right between his line and the creature. She was also too close that any attack from the teacher or the undead could well doubt harm her.

On the other hand, Montmorency was so scared she did not have strength or courage to get up and run. No, she became stiff and just sat there trembling as she watched the undead creature was approaching her slowly. Tears were formed from both eyes and her mouth was gaping out of fear for her unknown, probably terrifying but eventual fate.

"...I-I can't. Help..." the young blonde girl stuttered.

The N7 Slayer watched the whole thing happening from where he laid on the ground. His thought was screaming loudly in his head, telling him to get his ass up, protect the civilians, and KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKING HUSK immediately. Memories started to flashed back into his mind; the part where he and his squad watched helplessly from afar at the sight where many people got captured by the husks somewhere in Austria.

They struggled, kicked and screamed in utter futility as the husks dragged the civilians to their slow and eventual deaths on the slaughter ship. The Reaper spawns took all kinds of people; no exceptions. All of those men, women, the elderly... those teenagers, those children, those _infants_...

 _No! No! NO!  
_

Gritting his teeth, Imran mustered up his strength, fighting through so much pain that even the medi-gel his suit's pumped into him could not quell such agony. The N7 Slayer put his right hand on Saito's shoulder and raised his upper body up, using the boy frozen in fear next to him as leverage.

As he placed his left hand over the wound, Imran quickly pushed Saito's head down with his right forearm and rested it on the back of the boy's head and neck; he used them as an unconventional platform. Imran pointed his right arm with palm facing forward toward the synthetic creature.

Aiming as steady as he could, as fast as he could. The phase disruptor made a small whizz and hum before hitting its mark, making a loud, deafening explosion that filled the entire field which causing everyone to drop their heads down. As for Saito, the sudden loud blast from the weapon startled and deafened him, causing his ears to rang.

The shot hit right at the Pariah's head, causing it stagger and stop in its tracks. Colbert did not had a moment to find the origin of the explosion he just heard, but it stopped the revolting creature in its track and gave him an opening. He caught a glimpse of some sort of a blue energy field rippled around the creature's head but he would have to look into that later.

He quickly cast a _Levitation_ spell to move Montmorency up and pulled her far away from the undead creature. As soon as Montmorency was at his side and she quickly ran to safe distance, joining with the rest of the students, the bald professor quickly chanted a flame spell and a stream of fire came out of his staff, burning the humanoid abomination in flames.

A few seconds later, however, he could not believe of what he just saw. Colbert was astounded when the Pariah walked out of the blazing fire like it was nothing, with small char and burnt smudges over its body and limbs. No damage at all. It was not even screamed in pain. Of course, it probably could not feel pain at all.

"How...how could this be!?" Colbert incredulously exclaimed as his breathing slowly started to get intense in a slight anxious feeling.

The Pariah's scan did not find anything that could be recognized as an "effective weapon" on Colbert to allowed him to release a stream of fire at it. Even though the damage he caused was negligible on its synthetic flesh, the husk decided to classify him as an " **Unknown** " and proceeded to kill him in the ground of " **Possible Threat** ". The human husk quickly raised and outstretched its right arm at the bald human with its dark purple omni-tool flashed into life.

Colbert was shocked and gawked at the sudden materialization of the malevolently glowing, dark purple color of the holographic display at the Pariah's right forearm. He did not expect this undead monstrosity was capable of _performing magic_ ; truly this creature was actually more powerful and dangerous than he thought.

His worse fear, however, was the possibility that this creature was more powerful than a mage like himself.

 _How in Brimir's name am I going to kill it!?_ Colbert anxiously thought. Still, he stood his ground and he would not let this undead abomination harm any of his students.

As Colbert steeled himself, glared at the creature and prepared a stronger spell against it. But before he could do that, the Pariah hit Colbert with a _Neural Shock_. The bald teacher suddenly felt his muscles tighten and his body spasm as if he felt like being hit by lightning that coursed all throughout him.

His hold on his staff released as he fell to his side just barely conscious.

* * *

Imran knew what was coming next. Before it came, he grabbed the boy and jumped back as far as he could. His wounds burning him with a wave of pain as the husk fired an omni-net to the bald professor. Reacting fast, he gathered what strength there was left and flared a biotic _Pull_ at the robed man, barely saving him from being ensnared.

The blue haired girl, who was standing behind the teacher, barely dodged the flying omni-net in the nick of time.

Tabitha immediately released a wind spell she prepared beforehand, a _Gust_ spell, to blow the creature away. The line-class spell hit the mutilated human but instead of sending it flying as was the intention, the husk simply staggered back by three steps. Its feet never left the ground completely.

The Pariah gazed at the blue-haired girl. Its cybernetic brain attempting to process what had just occurred. Its cursory scan of the creature similar to the last: human-variant and emitting an unlisted form of energy. The staff's composition was a simple organic flora bark, **_Threat Level: Zero_**. However, just seconds before the anomalous shift in air currents, it picked up an increase spike of the unknown energy from her exact position. Identical to the other just before the flames spontaneously erupted.

The data was analyzed in a fraction of a second and the Pariah concluded that the girl and those like her were to be classified as " **Possible Threats** ". Until proven otherwise, they must be neutralized if they were hostile, which Tabitha had displayed before. It raised its omni-tool at her and fired a _Cryo Blast_. Tabitha was quick to react and tried to dodge the creature's strange magic.

But she did not anticipate how fast the white sphere moved or how it seemed to track her movements so well.

The ball of super-cooled particles collided with the girl's back and Tabitha felt a level of cold like she had never felt before. Her muscles stiffed in an instant and her clothes became rigid and brittle. Her forward momentum brought her body down to the ground, the dirt soften her fall with only her staff shattered upon impact.

For the first time since her mother's selfless action all those years ago, Tabitha was terrified; only this time she could not even scream.

"TABITHA!" Kirche cried in complete horror seeing her best friend turned frozen solid by the undead monster's 'ice magic'. She wanted to rush toward her but somebody grabbed her arms, restraining her from becoming the monster's next target.

"Kyui! Kyui!" Sylphid, Tabitha's dragon familiar, also screamed in terror at the sight of what had became of its master. She dashed toward Tabitha's frozen forms, jumping over the students, careful as she approached. She did not dare to touch her in her frozen state, but instead curled around her new sister hoping to warm her up while staying crouched, shielding the girl from the creature.

At the same time, Imran grabbed the bald teacher and stood up quickly before grabbing the monomolecular blade with his left hand from the magnetic back holster. He just saw a blue-haired girl got hit by the Pariah's _Cryo Blast_ and while the girl was still alive as long as no one touched her, it terrified him.

Yet it also enraged him.

"Get them out of here now!" Imran urgently ordered the startled teacher. "And don't touch the kid 'til she's thawed!" He told him before the N7 Slayer dashed toward the Pariah, using as much of his biotics as he could muster.

The human husk saw his approach and swung its left arm at him, but the N7 Slayer was expecting that. Twisting his body and bending his legs, he leaped up in an aerial cartwheel, evading the grotesque arm and landing behind the husk. Imran did not waste a moment and swung his sword in a horizontal arc right at the Pariah's right arm. And destroyed its omni-tool.

 _One less thing to worry about. But I gotta kill this thing fast!_

While the N7 Slayer was fighting off the Pariah, Kirche wrenched herself free from the student's hold and raced to the literally frozen Tabitha. The dragon familiar recognized her and allowed her passage while keeping an eye on the red-haired girl. Kirche knelt beside the rigid, ice-covered body to help her, never in her life had the Germanian mage felt so frightened – so utterly and hopelessly frightened.

"Miss Zerbst, don't!" Colbert, who remembered what the armored figure had told him, quickly warned her not to touch Tabitha. But the stubborn redheaded girl ignored her teacher's words.

"Eep!" Kirche squealed. She recoiled the instant she placed her palms at Tabitha back, yanking her hands back as though she had touch something very hot but the opposite of it. Kirche was startled when she found out just how cold Tabitha's body was.

It was like putting your bare hands in the frigid water during winter season. Kirche's action caused a piece of Tabitha's blouse snapped where she touched **.**

Meanwhile, the N7 Slayer was evading all the blows the Pariah tried to land on him, which was obviously unperturbed by the deep gash on its right arm. His blade had made several deep cuts on the synthetic flesh of the husk's limbs while Imran was parrying its attacks but it still kept going.

Every time Imran attempted to cut off the Pariah's limbs, he failed. The advanced alloys found in the bones of Reaper "heavy" units had high resistance to cuts from a monomolecular blade, but with repeated strikes his blade would eventually cut through. However, that only worked when hitting the same place for several times and the husk was smart enough to avoid that.

And there's another concern.

Imran's wound was screaming even louder after that 'little' stunt. He could tell the medi-gel's pain suppressor was wearing down. He began moving slower and his breathing was getting ragged. His vision would blur soon and it would be difficult for him to stay standing. After that he would lose consciousness and then death would be in the hands of a Reaper spawn.

If he did not kill it now, he would... _No, it dies NOW!_

The Pariah saw an opening and it made a backhand punch with its left arm at Imran's head. He tried to block it but the husk, despite the punishment it endured, remained as fierce as ever while Imran became more worn out as the seconds passed. He was knocked back a few feet. Still standing with a ringing in his head and then the Pariah was on him.

Years of intense training at the Interplanetary Combatives Training program was the only way he was able to quickly shake off the dizziness. But the N7 Slayer was not fast enough to dodge the Pariah's next move; it quickly raised its left knee and foot to a desired height and extended its left leg for a front push kick.

 _Oh crap...  
_

The Pariah's foot connected in the middle of his chest, throwing Imran several feet backward before he landed to the ground. The power behind the kick was so immense, it felt as if his chest was hit by a sledgehammer. The strike numbed the N7 Slayer's chest and he was letting out a pained grunt.

Imran then coughed harshly, struggling to breathe as the blow forced the air out of his lungs. He could not even scream. Fighting through the pain, he took a quick stock of the damage done: his ribs were not cracked thanks to thick ablative chestplate, though another hit like that would cave his chest in.

While Imran was laid on the ground coughing uncontrollably, the Pariah was not satisfied yet as it quickly walked toward the human combatant. Imran saw the husk was heading toward him and he raised the phase disruptor on his right palm at the Pariah's face and fired twice.

The heavy shields around its head flashed again, bullets flattened against the multi-layered mass effect fields as the husk staggered to its feet.

He used this chance to quickly get up to his feet, performing a perfect kip-up from the ground in a smooth graceful movement. At the same time, the Pariah regained its balance and dashed toward the N7 Slayer. The husk clenched both of its fists together, raised them to the air and swung them down.

Imran's reaction was fast enough to brace himself and hold the Pariah's forearms with his own as it rushed to pound him into the earth. It was a match of pure strength now, one where the husk was winning as it slowly pushed Imran down. His legs were struggling to stay straight as the muscles began to feel numb, all the while both their gazes were pressed against each other.

And then he noticed...

His vision started to blur.

 _Damn it!_ He inwardly cursed. It was now or dead. Using the last remaining reserves of his strength, the N7 Slayer's entire body quickly lit up an intense dark blue aura. The VI within his armor suit automatically pushed the micro-servos and artificial muscle fibers to their limits to amplify the user's physical strength.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Imran screamed in a furious desperation as he pushed the human husk back, breaking the Pariah's hold against him. Not giving it a moment to respond, he gathered all of his biotic energy into his left hand and thrust his blade right into its noseless nasal canal all the way out through its skull. The angle which went right through its rear brain.

The Pariah twitched for two seconds before it stopped and seemingly died. But for a good measure, Imran pushed a button on the handle to unleash powerful surge of electricity into the husk. Hundreds of volts of electricity flowed through the Pariah's body as it shuddered spasmodically and the almost-nauseating smell of burning synthetic flesh instantly permeated the air.

He switched off the blade's electrical generator a few seconds later. The blade then felt so heavy in the husk's skull. Imran raised his right arm and pushed the dead Pariah back as he pulled the blade out of its head, and his victim fell to the ground. He stood there for a few seconds before he slowly and wobbly took a few steps back from the corpse.

He took one last look at the blue-haired girl far from his right that got hit by the Pariah's _Cryo Blast_ , who was now became thawed out.

It was very fortunate that Tabitha was still alive and conscious as she was sitting there on the field. Kirche knelt next to her with a very concerned look as she generated a small orb of fire at the tip of her wand to keep her friend warm, as soon as the ice covered Tabitha's entire body quickly melted by itself while Sylphid's curled up body provided additional warmth.

The Gallian mage's legs curled toward her chest of their own volition, hugging herself in a failed attempt to stay warm as her body was shivering uncontrollably. At the same time, Tabitha was grimacing in pain due to frostbites she was suffering from. Her teeth chattered violently, making a loud noise.

She could never remember being so cold in her life. So terrified to be _so close_ to her death.

While Imran felt miserable for the agony that poor little girl had to endure, he also felt relieved that she was alive without suffering any non-life threatening injuries. And that was before the blade fell from his grasp, the strength swiftly left his legs and he felt very light-headed, which caused him to collapsed to the earth and laid there on his back.

 **THUD!**

* * *

"Oooiii!" When the armored figure collapsed to the ground, Saito immediately ran toward him. As the boy knelt beside the soldier and felt as though his heart had stopped beating when he noticed blood was flowing out of the gunshot wound more than before.

He quickly grabbed Imran's left hand with both of his, exactly similar to what he did to him several minutes ago; not to let him gave up his will to live. The same tense and grave atmosphere before returned again. Saito heard his breathing was starting to sound he was gasping for air desperately, while Imran simultaneously let out strangled cry of pain through his helmet.

Colbert also ran and knelt next to the N7 Slayer as the teacher desperately tried to keep him alive as long as he could until the healer mages arrived at the scene. All of the students watched anxiously at the event unfolded before them. The situation had became so serious that no one dared to break the silence in the group. Or they were simply too terrified to utter a word.

As they were waiting for the healers to come, both Saito and Colbert heard something indistinctly in low tones, though somewhat muffled coming from the N7 Slayer's completely sealed helmet. He seemed struggling to mutter something in a language not known to the bald teacher, but at the same time it was a language the Japanese boy vaguely recognized.

Then the muttering ceased and the N7 Slayer slowly lifted his trembling right hand and he pointed to the clear and serene blue sky high above him. Soon, his consciousness slipped the moment his right hand fell into the grass. His body stopped trembling...

...And no sound was heard coming from his helmet.

"Oh no... oh no... No no no no NO!" Colbert could not believe this was happening, this man should not die right now. In distress, the teacher attempted to remove the soldier's helmet but he could not yank it off his head. Whatever device that was making the helmet secured around the soldier's neck was very tight. "Gah, what is this?! I can't pull it off!" He growled in frustration.

"Let me try!" Saito said as he placed his fingers around the soldier's neck where the helmet met the collar to find something like a switch or latches to unfasten it. If any of the sci-fi movies, manga or anime had taught him anything.

Then, Saito felt something protruding underneath the helmet's sides. _Yes, this must be it!_ He unsnapped the latches and a snapping noise was produced, which was instantly followed by a hiss.

With the seals unlocked, Saito was able to pull the helmet off the soldier's head and put it on the ground next to him.

From there, they get their first look at the man and several gasps and mutterings were heard coming from the students. Colbert had his jaws dropped and his eyes widen in surprise at the sight of the mysterious soldier's face. As for Saito, his surprised expression was somewhat less than the bald, older guy next to him. But it was still a surprise for the boy.

The mysterious soldier's unconscious face clearly did not look like a native of Halkeginia due to his tanned but light skin and black hair, along with unique facial structure and features that were unlike anyone else from within the continent. The students began to think whether he came from the east beyond the land of the elves.

But for Saito his ethnic features seemed very familiar to him, but he could not remember which country they could originate from. Saito swore he had seen such facial features before from the news or documentaries on TV, or even pictures from the internet. Perhaps it was somewhere near India?

To check whether the soldier was still alive or not, Saito shook the man's body for any response, then the boy put his fingertips on the soldier's neck checking for a pulse. At the same time, Saito pressed his free hand's two fingers on his own neck to compare each other's heart rate, hoping for a miracle. Colbert wanted to ask him what he was doing before Saito spoke.

"I've got a weak pulse! He's still alive! We need to get him to the hospital now!" Saito urgently told the bald, older man.

Colbert was confused of the unknown phrases he heard coming from the human familiar namely "pulse" and "hospital". But the moment he said the word "alive", Colbert could not be more relieved to know that the mysterious soldier was still alive. Most of the students let out a sigh of relief the moment they heard that.

It was at that moment the Academy's resident healer mage arrived at the scene along with Guiche and Malicorne. The three of them instantly jumped and shrieked at the sight of a dead Reaper husk laying upon the ground the instant they saw it in front of them.

The healer mage by the name of Miss Peronne, who was in her late 30s, was breathing heavily as she tried keep herself composed by the horrendous sight.

As for the boys, their faces quickly paled in horror. The strength in their trembling legs immediately disappeared as both Guiche and Malicorne swiftly lost their balance and fell to the ground, sitting as their gazes still fixed at the totally grotesque creature before them.

"Colbert! What...what happened here!?" Miss Peronne asked the bald teacher as she stared at him in utter shock.

"Not now, Miss Peronne! This man needs immediate medical attention! We need to get him to the Healing Ward now!" Colbert shouted exigently at the healer to shift her focus at the serious situation at hand.

"R-Right!" The healer mage shakily nodded, trying to shake her thought at the monstrosity from her mind. She bolted toward the fallen figure on the ground and knelt beside her colleague, where she produced a wand in her hand. "I need to stop the bleeding first before we take him inside," she told him as she put her wand's tip at the gunshot wound.

Peronne muttered the incantation for a healing spell and the tip of her wand glowed brightly, a scene which greatly amazed Saito as he witnessed and gaped at the magic performed before his very eyes. The bright light on her wand glowed for several seconds before it dissipated.

"That should hold the bleeding for now," she informed them.

The healer mage stood up, cast a _Levitation_ spell to move the soldier's unconscious body up and pulled him along as she walked hurriedly into the main building.

While both the soldier and the healer left the scene, Colbert and Saito stood there looking down at the soldier's equipment that were left on the grass. The teacher picked up the monomolecular blade while the human familiar grabbed the helmet off the ground. Both of them examined the objects with great interest for a short moment before Colbert turned around and set his sight on his students.

Some of the students were still in shock by the intense event occurred before them; a few of them were sitting on the ground, their legs robbed of strength with restlessness sown all over their faces. By far, the most effected by the whole ordeal among the group was Montmorency. The blonde girl sat in a kneeling position sobbing uncontrollably as she was being comforted by her friends. Guiche moved in and gripped the poor girl in a hug after he had been informed of what had happened, obviously.

There was no doubt Montmorency was clearly traumatized by such frightening experience and how very close she was from suffering a possibly terrifying fate at the hand of such a foul creature.

Still, Colbert knew he could not blame the students for what was happening to their poor delicate mind. The unforeseen, extreme occurrence shook these teenagers to the core and it would take a while for them to recover from it. Such a pitiful sight for a veteran combat mage. Still they would need assistance from the teachers to help and accompany the students to their dormitory.

"Alright, everyone please stay here for the moment while I get the teachers to escort all of you to your rooms," Colbert ordered the students before he turned his eyes on the blue-haired mage who finally got up in the field. "Miss Zerbst, I suggest you take Miss Tabitha to the Healing Ward as soon as possible to check for injuries."

The Germanian mage firmly nodded and carried the frostbite afflicted Tabitha in bridal style to the main tower. Minutes later, Colbert arrived with a group of teachers from the main tower who, just like the healer mage earlier, were also startled by the gruesome sight of a Pariah laid dead on the ground.

Luckily, Colbert came prepared and brought a sheet with him to drape over the monster's corpse. The older mages then help the shocked students, especially with the traumatized and still sobbing Montmorency, along their way to their dormitory as the rest of them flew quietly and moved towards the stone walls of the compound in the distance. The bald teacher then turned his attention to the person nearest to him.

"Miss Vallière."

* * *

The only people left in the courtyard were Louise and Saito who stood there trying to process what had just happened before.

"Y-Yes, Mr. Colbert?" Louise turned to her teacher, a bit agitated.

"Are you alright? Do you need me to escort you to your room?" Colbert gently asked her as his face frowned with concern for his student's well being.

"N-No! It's alright, Mr. Colbert. I'm fine, I can go back to my room on my own," she assured her teacher.

"Are you sure, Miss Vallière?" He skeptically asked, he did not believe Louise's words. "If you have any problem, please, don't hesitate to ask for my help. It is a responsibility of any teacher to help their students, no matter what the problem is."

Louise shook her head a little in disagreement over his insistence. "It's alright, Mr. Colbert. I can... walk to my room by myself. If I need anything, I'll inform you, sir." She ended her last sentence with a confident look to reassure him.

"Very well then." Colbert then turned his gaze to the human familiar. "Would you kindly look after Miss Vallière for the rest of the day, please?"

"Oh! Uh-um...of course," Saito nodded, though somewhat a little hesitant over the request.

The bald teacher then cast _Levitation_ on himself and he slowly flew off to the stone walls of the academy's compound. Though that did not mean he left both of them in the courtyard with feelings of concern for both of them. Who knew what kind of damage afflicted upon the minds of both his student and her human familiar by the event.

As Colbert left both the mage and the familiar behind, Louise thought over of what she just said to her teacher. She gave her words to Colbert to convince and assure him that she was fine over the whole ordeal and that she could handle it on her own. She wanted to look strong, without weakness in front of her peers no matter what. Even her own teacher. To show them despite her inability to cast a spell perfectly, it did not mean she was a weak, highly dependent failure of a mage.

Louise wanted to be stronger, to be more independent so that she could rely on herself more than from others. That was one of the principles of the "Rule of Steel" her mother enforced repeatedly upon her.

And now that "Rule" _meant nothing_. Louise failed to maintain her hold over her fake facade of calm and confidence as her emotions got the better of her. Louise's eyes watered with tears, streaming down her cheeks as she gritted her teeth in distress and extreme fear as those negative feelings instantly flooded her heart and mind. The experience, the horror and the tension over the incident were too much for her to handle them.

Louise lied. She lied not just to her teacher but to herself as well. She was not alright; she was scared. _She was so scared_ and she did not have the strength to deal with the extreme fear gripping tightly to her chest. And now Louise's legs lost their strength to stand up and she quickly knelt to the ground and letting out soft sobs.

Her hands clenched into fists as she placed them on her thighs, her eyes were shut. She could not deny it anymore. She could not conceal it anymore.

The intense dread and tension were eating her fragile self up.

By Founder Brimir, Louise felt so stupid for not accepting the sincere help Colbert had offered to her. She was now alone, kneeling and sobbing in the courtyard with no one else to help her.

Then, she felt a gentle squeeze on her left arm and her back was rubbed comfortably. Whatever that person was doing to her, it helped Louise a lot. She felt her tensed body was relaxing, the gentle rhythm of the hand that was rubbing her back soothed Louise's chaotic thoughts and lightened the torment that was tightening around her heart.

She slowly turned her head to the left to see the face of the person who was comforting her, helping her getting through the emotional turmoil within herself. What Louse saw before her eyes was not someone she least expected to help her and she was surprised by the identity of that person.

It was her human, commoner familiar.

Saito stood there shocked to see the girl who stole his first kiss crumbled into a sad, pathetic state that would make any person with a hardened heart soften a little. But for Saito, such a sight turned his heart into mush. A frown etched upon Saito's face when seeing the pitiful little girl reduced into this.

He should at least had the courtesy to comfort her like any decent person. But he did not know the right words to do it, so Saito did what he could for her. He let go of his bag and placed both it and the helmet upon the earth. Saito approached her and knelt next to the girl where his left hand tenderly clutched her left arm, while he placed the right on her back and rubbed it gently.

"Sshh, sshh. It's alright. It's over, you're safe now," Saito quietly said as he continued to rub her back.

"But..." Louise looked up to him, where his eyes showed concern.

"That... monster is dead now. That man, he saved us. It'll never hurt you or anyone now," Saito assured her firmly and gave her a soft, gentle smile as Louise continued to look at him.

As she was still sniffling, Louise nodded her head slightly. Now the girl had quiet down, Saito released his grip from her arm and he rummaged through his hoodie's front pocket. He then produced a small white packet of pocket tissue in his hand.

The pink-haired girl gazed the small white item with slight curiosity. It was the size of a hand, rectangular in shape, and had symbols or letters of a language she did not recognize. But the one feature on the item that piqued her interest was the drawing of plump, somewhat adorable black-white creatures of different sizes on it.

The creature sitting in the middle was big and it had a smaller one sitting next to it, where it rested its head on the bigger creature's... shoulder or belly. Then there was a line of five similar looking beasts below the two, where each of them was depicted doing an action different from the rest.

Saito opened the packet with both hands and he pulled out a piece of tissue paper out of the packet. The boy placed the packet back into his hoodie's right front pocket and he gently wiped the tears off of Louise's cheeks and below her eyes as he rubbed her back again.

Louise's cheek blushed a little, she felt relieved and grateful for her familiar's kind and tender behavior he was showing to her. All those dreadful thought were numbed from her mind and she became completely relaxed, all thanks to his considerate, selfless deed.

 _Perhaps... having a commoner for a familiar isn't so bad after all._

After Saito finished dried her eyes from the tears, he pulled his hand away from Louise's face, crumpled the tissue paper and put it into the left front pocket of his hoodie. "There. Are you feel better?"

"Y-Yes, thank you," Louise quietly said as she stared the ground for a moment, with a tiny smile was etched on her slightly reddened face before she looked back at his face. "That thing you hold... I've never felt a fabric slightly rough, yet so smooth like that. Was it cotton?"

Saito blinked in confusion at her question. "No, it's just tissue paper. Nothing special."

"That was _paper_?" Her eyes slightly widen at the news. "It's... soft. I didn't know papers could be made to such fine quality."

"Well, it's been used for...," Saito paused, put a finger to his chin and tilted his head. "...I don't know **,** a hundred years or so. Though I think back then **,** paper was really coarse compared to what we have now."

"I see. It must have costed a lot of money to buy such thing."

The boy's face twisted to one of confusion mixed with astonishment which confused the pink-haired girl a bit. _Seriously, has she ever owned a tissue paper before in her life?_

"No. It's actually so cheap to produce and sell that people sometimes handing them out to everyone for free. That's how I got this packet." Saito casually explained.

Louise's eyes now became wider than before as she was surprised upon hearing this from him. _Is he for real? For FREE?!_

This familiar must had come from a wealthy country where papers of such great quality could be made easily and sold very inexpensively to the point they could just give it for free to everyone. To both nobles and commoners, no less! It made her wonder what sort magic or crafting techniques the people in his country did to create such novel items in large quantity.

Saito stood up and offered his hand to help her get up. Louise accepted and took his hand as he helped her get up to her feet. "Say, you said your name was Louise... um...," he asked as soon as the girl stood up straight.

"Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière," she told him with a bit of confidence.

"R-Right," Saito replied. "So Miss Louise, where is this place again?"

"You're in Tristain and this is Tristain Academy of Magic," Louise answered. If he was from a far way country, then it was quite understandable that he would not know about Tristain or Halkeginia in general.

The only thing the boy could do was staring at her in silence for a few seconds. As soon as his eyes blinked once, Saito responded with the only word he could think of.

"What?"

* * *

 ** _Thanks for the reviews! I hope you leave some for this chapter after you've read it._**

 ** _Also, in case you don't know what are the "black-white creatures" Louise saw on the tissue packet, they're actually pandas._**


	4. Chapter 4: The Witching Hour

**_First, I would like to apologize so much to all of you for waiting more than a year for an update. Me and the beta-reader have been caught up with a lot stuffs and works in real life that we couldn't avoid, where as a result it took away the time we needed the most to finish this chapter. There were moments where we almost gave up on this fic and forget about it. Yet we were fortunate that our passion to write this story wasn't extinguished and it will never be._**

* * *

"Wait. You're telling me you're not from _this world_?" Louise asked, looking at Saito with an expression of disbelief.

In her hands, Louise held a cup of tea and took a quick sip. Normally, she'd only use one hand but the ordeal in the courtyard still left her shaken. Both of them were in Louise's dorm room, sitting at the small table after they walked to the Second Year students' dormitory from the courtyard. The sun had set only a few minutes ago. Louise had some tea brought up to her room to help put the incident aside from her mind. A thought many in the dorm shared.

When the tea and accompanying snacks arrived, the two started chatting. Or rather asking and answering each other's question. Saito had just finished explaining, to the best of his abilities, just how far from home he was.

"That's right. I was just walking back home then I saw this green oval thing and then I'm here," Saito replied, before he took a bite of bread he held, which was offered by Louise.

"Well...It's kinda hard for me to believe it," she hesitantly told him.

"I know it sounds crazy but it's the truth," Saito said insistently. "This isn't something I would make up. I mean, take a look at my clothes and their designs: are these something that any people from your place could make? And my bag: have you seen any people from here carry such thing with them?" He pointed at his bag which was resting on the wall.

"Look, I admit your attires isn't like anything I've seen and I've seen the works of some of the best tailors in the country, but I don't know whether I can take your story at face value." The familiar ritual had been used since Brimir's time and never in its use had a human familiar been summoned from beyond the continent, let alone beyond the realm. However, that did not mean Louise assume he was lying.

"I'm serious! Even I can't believe I found myself in another world. Especially one that has magicians and _two moons_. It's like something from a fantasy manga."

Earlier in the late afternoon, before they started walk into one of the towers that housed the dormitory, Saito made a glance upward and saw those two huge moons floating in the late afternoon sky. It was really clear for him that he was not in Japan, _not even on Earth_.

"There's such a world like that?" Louise asked him skeptically, as she raised an eyebrow.

"I'm telling you, it's where I came from! We don't have mages there and my world only has one white moon," Saito told her in a pleading tone.

Louise scratched her head with her left hand as she wore a troubled look, because anything he said about him from another world with no mages and only have one moon was getting hard for her to believe them. Not without any hard evidence.

"And all of these talk about 'Summoning' and 'Magic', just...just what is all that supposed to mean anyway?" He asked, with a bit of tiredness behind his voice.

"Alright, I'll explain. The 'Summon Servant Ritual' is a sacred ritual a mage conducts to summon a creature that's elementally aligned with the summoner as a familiar," she explained as if reciting from a text book. "Magic academies, like this one, have the students preform the ritual during the start of their second year."

"So, does everyone here use magic like you?"

"No, only the nobles can use magic as bequeathed by god. Commoners, like you for example, are people that can't use any magic," Louise told him.

"And what about that 'familiar' I kept hearing about earlier? What does that mean?" Saito asked again. He had watched some anime involving magicians where birds or little lizards appeared as their familiars. But that was as far as he knew about them.

"Basically, a familiar is a creature summoned and contracted by a mage through the 'Summon Servant', which then becomes its loyal servant and guardian for as long as the contract is in place," Louise answered before she explained the duties of a familiar. "First, a familiar is able to grant its master an enhancement in vision and hearing. For instance, what the familiar sees, the master can also see. Second, a familiar will obtain items its master desires such as reagents."

"You mean stuffs like chemicals? For making a potion?" Thank goodness for the fantasy RPG games Saito had played. They always had those crafting mini-games within it.

"Exactly. So you know something useful like this, yes?" Louise sounded surprised, she did not expect him to know things like this.

"Eh, I don't know what kind of stuff you'll want, but I may able to find it if you tell me the specifics and show me pictures. And as long as it's attainable, though," Saito concurred. "But don't expect me to hand you a bottle of hydrochloric acid because my hands always shake whenever I hold that or any dangerous stuff like it."

He shuddered, as he remembered the time where he almost dropped a glass bottle of such liquid during Chemistry class back in his school's lab. Saito knew how dangerous that chemical was and what would happen if several drops of the acid hit his skin if he dropped the bottle to the floor.

" _Hai-dero-kaloric_? What's that?" Louise asked, she never heard such a substance like that before.

"A type of liquid used in metal making that's so corrosive it'll destroy and damage flesh when the liquid comes into contact with it," Saito grimly told her. "Trust me. I've seen pictures of people got splashed in the face with them. The results were...Let's just say you'll instantly lose your appetite for dinner after you see them."

Saito's head visibly trembled, just as his face contorted in revulsion when pictures of victims treated for acid attacks that were showed on the news flashed in his mind.

"That's...That's dangerous indeed," Louise was shocked that such harmful material existed. She frowned in displeasure before she continued talking. "Alright, moving on. And finally, the most important thing of all, is that a familiar is to protect its master. But that might be difficult for you to do..."

"Since I'm human..."

"Yes. A powerful beast would almost always defeat its enemies." She then gave him the boy a worried look. "But since you're human and a commoner, I don't think you could even beat a wolf, a bear or a griffon."

"The first two if I had a weapon and training but a griffon?! I'll be _owned_ ," he slumped down a bit. There were griffons here, and he saw a dragon in the courtyard. How was he suppose to beat those!?

NO. CHANCE. AT. ALL.

"Owned?" Louise cocked her head a little, confused at the use of the word.

"It's an informal term, for someone who has just been soundly defeated with little effort," Saito explained with a long face.

Louise gave a nod in understanding before continuing. "And that's why it's better for you to do things I'm fairly sure you can do: laundry, cleaning, and other miscellaneous tasks. So you don't have to fight."

"If that's the case, send me home then," Saito said as he leaned forward.

Louise blinked in confusion at what he just spoke. "What?"

"Send me back home. What good am I to you if I'm just a normal human who can do nothing but menial tasks. Send me to fight a dragon or some magical beast and I'm a dead man anyway," Saito gave her a depressing look.

Louise became fidgeted as she took a sideways glance, not looking at Saito directly. "That's... impossible. I'm sorry."

Saito's eyes widen in shock as soon as he heard those words from her. "But why...? What do you mean it's _impossible_?!"

Louise nervously avoid making eye contact with him as she bowed her head, staring at the floor. "Because you've been bound by a contract as my familiar; it doesn't matter if you come from the countryside or a completely different world like you've said. Once the bond is established, it... can't... be undone."

A completely disheartened expression was quickly sown on Saito's face when he heard this. "You gotta be kidding..."

"And that's not all. The 'Summon Servant' is a strictly one-way spell. No incantation of any kind exists to return a summoned familiar back to where it was brought from. Also, the runes that had been inscribed on your left hand, it's like a stamp that says you're my familiar," she pointed her finger at his left hand, which was resting on the table.

"No...No!" He slowly rested his back upon the chair, his breathing immediately sounded a little ragged as his worst fear became reality. This could not be happening to him!

"Look, I don't like this either! I didn't ask to have you as my familiar! I was expecting some sort of animal, not a human," Louise quickly replied with an anxious look etched upon her face. "We don't have control on what we summon. The only guarantee is that the creature brought forth matches a mage's elemental affinity in some fashion. The rest is completely random."

"Please, just send me back. Just...Just try it. Try cast that spell on me one more time. It might return me to my world, please," Saito pleaded her.

"I'm sorry but again, it's _impossible_ ," Louise sadly shook her head. "And I can't even cast it now."

"What? Why not?"

"Using 'Summon Servant' again is..."

"Yeah?" Saito felt like he was not going to like what he was about to hear this.

"...completely ineffective unless the familiar you first summoned has died." Louise's face twisted into one of sadness as soon as she ended her sentence.

"Say what...?" Saito froze, and he instantly became completely dismayed.

He could not believe it. His chance of return to his home was snatched away from him. Did that mean he would never see his family and his friends again? Saito bowed his head, gazing blankly at the table and he felt his eyes started to welling up in tears. How was he going to return home now?

Louise felt miserable looking at her familiar who was in despair. How everything seemed to falling apart around him. She needed to think of something, searching a way to get all of those depressed thought numbed from his mind, shifted his focus to something else.

"You still believe you're really from another world?" Louise asked, with a soft tone behind it. She was torn between believing and distrusting Saito as she was still perplexed of his origin.

"Yeah," Saito slowly nodded, his voice cracked and his head still bowed down.

"Can you show me some proof?"

He raised his head, staring the girl in puzzlement. "What?"

"You said you're from another world. Do you have other proof than your clothing and bag?"

Saito could only blink in surprise at her request to show her the evidence. "Yes, I do. Hold on just a moment." He stood up from his seat and went to his bag which rested upon the wall.

He unzipped the bag, pulled out his recently repaired laptop and placed it on the small table where Louise was sitting at. She was curious how this flat, rectangular blue thing would explain that her familiar truly came from a different world.

What's this?" Louise asked.

"A notebook computer. Also known as laptop," Saito replied.

He unfolded the device and the surface the laptop's black LED screen gleamed with the reflected light generated by the lamp in Louise's room. It had many square and few rectangular buttons with letters, numbers and symbols on them that she did not recognize.

"I've certainly never seen anything like this. What kind of magical artifact is it?" She inquired.

"It's not magic. It's a piece of technological device, a product of science," he said. Before Louise could ask Saito what were the words meant, he pushed the device's silvery power button and the laptop computer whirred to life.

"Uwah! What is that?!" Louise gave a surprised yelp as the black reflective panel lit up, several unknown letters and numbers quickly appeared on the screen.

"It's the laptop's screen." Saito nonchalantly said.

"It's pretty..." Louise continued to look at the device with amazement as the screen changed again into blackness. A couple of seconds later, a colorful background appeared with several unknown letters and numbers written at the lower left part of the screen. "What element of magic does it use? Wind? Water?"

"No magic. Just technology, powered by electricity." Saito pushed the spacebar on the keyboard and the image transformed into one that had blank, purple backdrop with two white rectangular spaces which had letters of 'Username' and Password' in each of them. A large square image of an RX-78-2 Gundam's head as his chosen PC user profile picture was placed next to the rectangular spaces.

He typed in his username and password, clicked the 'Enter' key and the screen changed once more into one that had many small squares and rectangles, with colorful pictures within all of them. Louise became fascinated at the device functioning before her widen eyes, staring at the screen intently.

Still, she clearly did not get what Saito had told her earlier. "So, what kind of element is this 'technology'? Is it different from the four elemental powers? What's that 'electricity' you mentioned?"

"Electricity is kind of like controlled lightning. As for technology, it's...uhhh... How am I gonna explain this?" Saito scratched his head, trying to come up a way to explain to her about technology but in a simpler version with something Louise could relate to in here. As he pondered how to best go about it, he notice something sitting on a shelf that would help.

"That!" He indicated and brought the shelf clock over to the table. "Does this clock run on magic?"

Louise blinked once, then twice at his question before answering, "No."

"Then how does it work?" he followed up immediately.

Louise thought the question for a moment, trying to recall anything she knew about clockwork, "Well...there are gears and springs, I think, inside. All placed in some order and you just have to wind it up with the key on the back and it start ticking."

"But no magic involved, right?" he asked.

Louise looked at the clock and Saito and back to the clock again, "Well, some magic could've been used in the forging of the metal but, from what I know, it doesn't use magic to keep time."

"This is an example of technology **.** This laptop here is like the clock, but much more advanced than you have now. _Hundreds of years_ more advanced with many more functions," Saito emphasized, it was not like he wanted to brag about it. Still, he could not help but felt prideful of showing off the wonders of his world's modern science and tech to her.

"It can store information like a book but very different. The laptop can keep pictures, music, documents and allows you to play games. As well as writing notes and rearrange information. You can also use this to play videos too!" Saito was obviously getting excited explaining the device's function to the girl.

"What's a _vee-dee-ohs_?" Louise asked, such foreign terms confused her.

"Oh, it's a bunch of moving pictures with sounds generated simultaneously. A recording of sight and sound," Saito casually described.

"Moving pictures...and sounds created from it...all at once?" Louise was surprised that such a thing could possibly be made in his world. And that 'laptop' of his, it really baffled her that the device in front of her could function without magic.

The boy then rummaged his pant's left pocket and produced a small, hand-sized, rectangular shaped white object. The object in his left hand was his smartphone. Louise eyed the small device in his hand with interest and it made her wonder whether this was also another item created by this 'technology' and powered by 'electricity'.

"This is a smartphone. It's basically a smaller, handheld version of the laptop but it's main function is to allow you to communicate at long distances with someone who's also owns a similar device. Me and that person would talk with each other as if we're standing in the same room," Saito demonstrated on how to use it. He pushed the main button on the phone and he showed it to her.

"All...All right, then." Louise muttered as she gazed in wonder at the phone's brightly lit screen, which showed another unknown letters, numbers and symbols.

Along with a small background picture of what it seemed to be a smooth road with a row of trees with beautiful pink-colored leafs or petals beside it, as well as a tall castle of completely foreign design at a distance. Louise seemed had taken interest on the beautiful trees because their leafs or petals matched the color of her own hair.

"What's more, this phone can take photos, sort of like instantaneous, highly detailed drawing or picture. It can record vid- moving pictures and sounds as well," Saito continued talking.

He then fiddled his finger on the smartphone and directed its backside at Louise, while the boy smiled a bit playfully at the device, which confused the girl a little.

 **KRING! KA-CLICK!**

Within a few seconds, a sudden bright flash of white light with a loud clicking sound were produced from it, causing the pink-haired girl to startled from her seat. Luckily for her, the cup in her right hand was empty of its tea so she would not have to worry about spilling it over her skirt.

"Kyaah! What was that?!" Louise yelped as soon as the flash from the device came on.

Saito, who almost could not contain his laugh, chuckled at her surprised behavior. She looked as though she was about to jumped off from her chair. "Sorry, sorry. I just took a picture of you, Louise. Don't worry, there's nothing happened to you when I did that. Here, take a look."

He showed Louise his smartphone and inside was a picture of her sitting at the table, facing herself the viewer with a curious look while she was holding her empty cup. The girl had her eyes widen in great surprise that she was looking at a picture of herself in that little white box. She was starting to believe her familiar's claim of coming from another world are actually true.

A world with one moon, no mages and with technology to replace the absence of magic. Would not that also meant there were _no Nobles_ there?

Such a thought was something her mind couldn't fathom.

"Do you believe me now?" Saito asked.

"Well..., I think I do..." Louise agreed, though with some hesitation behind her voice.

"That's good enough for me," Saito shrugged. He then put his smartphone back into his pocket and went to his laptop on the small table.

He pushed a few keys on the keyboard and a separate page appeared at the right side of the screen. Saito directed the small arrow symbol, a cursor, on the screen with his finger via the touchpad, clicked a symbol by tapping the pad and a list of three words appeared. He directed the cursor to one of the words in the middle and tapped the pad again. The laptop's screen quickly changed into a plain dark blue background with two words appeared in the middle. A few seconds later, the screen changed into a black reflective panel and the whirring sound from the device disappeared.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

"So what now?" Saito, stood in the middle of the room, asked his 'master' right after he put the laptop back to his bag.

"I need to write a letter to my family about the success of my 'Summon Servant' and...," Louise paused for a moment, remembering that incident occurred earlier in the courtyard. "...probably about what occurred in the afternoon after I had summoned you here. But before that, I'm going to change my clothes first."

She then brought her hand up to the top button of her blouse. One by one, the buttons came undone and soon she was down to her underwear. Saito instantly blushed when he saw the girl was taking off her clothes so casually right before him.

"Wh-wh-what are you doing?!" Saito stuttered in shock, quickly turned around and pulled out out his hood over his head.

"It's night so I will be going to sleep right after I write my letter, so I'm getting changed," Louise answered as if it was the most obvious thing.

"Couldn't you have warned be before you started taking off your clothes?!" He exclaimed.

"Why?" She asked, as though she was oblivious of the hint from him.

"Because it makes the situation awkward! Seriously!" Saito nervously told her, his face was still reddened.

"It's not awkward at all," Louise calmly replied as if it was a state of fact.

"You're okay with doing that in plain sight of a guy?!"

"A guy? Who? I don't need to think anything of being watched by my familiar."

"A _human familiar_. And _a male_ one too, don't forget about that," Saito reminded her before he continued explaining. "Seriously, that's exactly how you'd treat a dog or cat. But a _male_ _human_? Try think of yourself in my position for once! If you're my familiar and I'm your master and I took my clothes off in front of you, what do you think will happen?"

That stopped Louise's action immediately when she was about to take off her camisole, and her eyes widen in realization at the logic he told her. That and her cheeks started to flush in red as well. She had forgotten that she summoned a _human_ as her familiar, not some animal or magical beast. The rules of an animal familiar did not apply to a human, even if he was a commoner no less!

"I... You-you're right about that. Sorry, I forgot that you're human," Louise shyly apologized.

"It's okay. Just...please! Don't do that next time, will you?" Saito asked her, he was still nervous over this situation. "Anyway, are you done?"

"N-no! Not yet!" Intense blush spread across Louise's face as she was changing her clothes at a quick pace.

As Saito stood there patiently with his hood was still covering his head and his back was still facing Louise, he saw a small envelope was slipped under the door into Louise's room. He grabbed the envelope as he knelt near the door. He turned it around and saw a wax seal of a pentagram symbol stamped on the envelope's top flap.

"There's a letter for you, Louise. And...are you done yet?" He asked again as soon as he stood up. His back was still facing the girl.

"I'm done," she told him.

Saito turned around and saw Louise was wearing a large pink nightgown. And in the dim light thrown off by the lamp, he could see the outline of her slender figure. That and coupled with her cute face, Saito felt his heart throbbed a bit faster than before and his cheeks went slightly red at a subtly elegant sight.

"There's a letter for me? That's weird." Louise took the envelope from him, completely unaware of the faint bloom on his face. She opened it with a knife-like letter opener, pulled the letter out and proceeded to read its contents.

"Who is it from?" Saito asked as he took a peek at the letter. He could not read the contents as they were inscribed with runic letters of a language he couldn't understand.

"It's from Old Osmond, the Headmaster of the Academy. It says here all Second Year classes will be suspended for three days to give the Second Year students time to adjust themselves in light of the recent incident back at the courtyard."

"So if you have no classes for three days. Guess that makes sense after that," Saito said. "What should we do for all of that free time?"

"Well, after the 'Summon Servant' was completed, they give all of the Second Years a day off to bond with our familiars." Louise put her right index finger on her chin, thinking what sort of activity she wanted to do tomorrow. "Perhaps tomorrow you could show me more of your 'laptop' and 'smartphone's' functions. Would that be fine?"

Saito's face quickly beamed up in joy; he was obviously excited that he would have the opportunity to show off his 'wondrous' modern toys. Along with some of the pictures from home he took with his camera, which he stored some of them in his laptop. The boy just could not wait to display them to Louise and possibly other students as well.

"That's perfect."

"Very well. In the mean time, could you please wash my clothes while I write a letter to my family?"

Saito raised an eyebrow when he heard the request but decided to put it aside. "Do you think it's a good idea to also tell them what happened earlier today? Wouldn't that make them, I don't know...scared? Even if there's only one of that monster here, your family would probably think there's more of them and won't hesitate to pull you out of the academy just to keep you out of harm's way in short notice." He saw Louise's face quickly winced shortly after he finished the sentence, but he didn't understand why.

"Not to mention all parents, including yours, are gonna be furious if they know the academy didn't do the best of their abilities to keep their children safe. And then this academy will probably going to get a lot of flak for it, possibly causing this place to be closed for investigation of something. Which also means you're going to miss a lot of magic lessons for a long time."

Louise bowed her head. She didn't realize just how much damage she would cause to this academy if she told her parents about the incident. Her mother would come in and torn this place apart in anger for letting a monster roaming in the compound and almost killed Louise and the students.

Besides, that also meant she would be married off to her fiancé much faster than before and Louise was still not ready for it! "I-I didn't realize that. I'll probably just let that part omitted instead."

"That's for the best. Though I'm sure your other classmates are doing the same thing you were gonna do." Saito picked up the wooden basket containing the girl's clothes and went to the door. But before he was about to grab the doorknob, he stopped and turned around to face Louise. "Uh, do you know the place where I can wash these?"

"There are fountains near the main tower in the courtyard. There are several of them so you wouldn't miss one. Or you can ask any maid around here for direction if you got lost."

"Oh, all right, Louise." Saito responded before he opened the door and exited the room.

 _I should've told him to called me 'master' instead of my first name..._ Louise frowned a bit. But when she recalled that moment, that one special moment where her familiar had helped her dealing with the trauma and emotional distress she had experienced with great care and kindness, her frowned look quickly soften into a contemplative one.

The girl could not help but be grateful for what her familiar did to her. _And that's not all, that time when Saito... That was his name, right?_

When Louise reminisced of the time where Saito wiped the tears off Louise's cheeks and eyes, while rubbing her back gently to ease her anxiety, she did not see of him as an 'it'. Nor did she not see him as 'some sort of animal'.

No, she saw a 'he' and a 'person'...

 _Not calling me 'master'..._ Louise snorted, and a faint smile was created simultaneously. _Oh well, it's not that big of a deal anyway. Normal familiar can't talk, let alone say 'Master'._ When she turned around to her table, intending to write her family a letter, she took a sideways glance at her bed and noticed the pile of straw next to it. Then a sudden realization hit her.

Earlier in the day, she placed a pile of fresh straw there because she was expecting an animal familiar, not a human. Even if Saito was a commoner, it seemed wrong and somewhat degrading or a bit inhumane by giving him a place to sleep that should be only fitting for a pet beast. It felt wrong for Louise if she slept on a soft, cozy and warm bed while her human familiar would slept uncomfortably and shivering in cold on a hard floor with thin pile of straws for a bed.

And no blanket...

 _Maybe I should order a mattress, a pillow and blanket from the servants first while he do the laundry below._ Louise grabbed her long night robe and a pair of slippers from her wardrobe and wore them before she went out of her room, looking for any servant still working in the dormitory.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

As Saito walked down the corridor of the dorm to the stairs, his mind suddenly found itself in a state of perplexity when he had a moment of realization of what he was currently doing.

 _Wait, why did I agree doing this? Was it because of my good manners? Or to return the favor for the bread earlier?_ The boy was trying to figure out why he agreed to wash Louise's clothes, when he had the choice to say or decide on the opposite?

But, as he reached the ground floor, Saito noticed a blonde boy in a cape similar to Louise, while wearing a frilly shirt with its collar left unbuttoned to reveal a bit of his chest. The blonde boy was sitting on a bench with a sullen expression etched upon his face. His hands clenched tight on top his legs, shaking. A rose laid next to him by his left.

Guiche was deep in thought about Montmorency, who was completely traumatized by the events earlier in the courtyard. From what he heard from his classmates, that undead monster—which was now 'dead'—was gonna kill Montmorency before Mister Colbert pulled her away from the walking abomination and attacked it with his fire magic. But the monster didn't die and it then retaliated with some sort of wandless magic that incapacitated the teacher. It was fortunate that it was only temporary and he recovered with no ill effects.

But the same could not be said for Tabitha. To became frozen so suddenly, frost coating her body like a veil of snow, even if it was just for a little while. Once again it was fortunate the magic was temporary. Thank the Gods and Founder for that.

If it wasn't for that man in the strange black armor, everyone would've been killed. Montmorecy would've been killed.

Montmorency was crying uncontrollably as she was escorted to her room by Miss Chevereuse. Guiche followed closely behind. When they arrived in front of the door of her room, Miss Chevereuse told Guiche not to disturb Montmorency to give her time to calm herself down.

When the teacher left, Guiche stayed behind. Standing in front of the door to Montmorency's room. He could hear the faint sound of her sobs and sniffs from the door outside of Montmorency's room. He wanted to go in and comfort her, but Guiche remained there for a couple of minutes doing nothing but sadly listened her crying before he left.

He wasn't there to protect her as the professor sent him to call the healer so he couldn't protect her. Could he have protected her? Or would he have coward in fear from the sight of that thing? Never in his life he felt so worthless. Unable to do anything for his girlfriend, not even to try to do even the simple act of kindness and sympathy for her as a boyfriend. Perhaps it's the right thing to leave Montmorency to calm herself from that ordeal, wasn't it?

Just thinking about how vulnerable she was in her room distressed Guiche so much.

The sound of footsteps grabbed his attention, he snapped his head up and saw the cause. Guiche instantly recognized him as Louise's commoner familiar. His completely foreign facial features and structures, his unusual black hair and eyes, as well as those odd looking clothes of his make him stand out. He's carrying a basket of clothes. Laundry needing washing, most likely.

Both boys made a brief eye contact before Saito returned his gaze forward as he walked towards the dorm exit. Guiche returned to the plague of his sorrow and anxiety as he wonder how long till his beautiful flower would recover from this. And how he could just sit here and do nothing. Did he really have the right to call himself her 'boyfriend'?

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

It was official—Saito was lost. He was still walking around the courtyard under the light of the moonlight at night trying to find a fountain to wash Louise's clothes. But the place was so big that even the night was illuminated by moonlight, it was still hard for Saito to see anything when everything at a distance in front of him looked dim. Despite as his eyes were adjusting to the low light conditions.

Saito then spotted a black haired girl wearing maid outfit walking from the main tower in the walkway well lit with torches hanging from the wall. He quickly seized the opportunity to ask her for direction.

"Excuse me! Hey there!" Saito called the maid from courtyard as he walked at a fast pace towards the walkway. He entered the walkway and appeared a few feet in front of the girl.

The maid flinched in surprise as she heard a voice came from the courtyard, which in her mind probably directed at her. Then, a teenage boy came into the walkway from the left and appeared at a distance before her. She regarded the person for a moment before she calmed herself down.

From her point of view, the teenager looked obviously a foreigner and not native of Tristain due to his odd looking clothes. Especially with both of his exotic facial features and structures that looked so similar to the ones where some of her family members including herself were sharing. Besides that, the boy seemed to be at the same age as herself.

"Yes? Can I help you, sir?" The maid asked as she smiled politely at him.

Saito noticed the maid in front of him had a very cute look, short black hair and a pair of dark brown eyes. Even her voice sounded very cute too! But what surprised him was her facial features and structures seemed to be of East Asian descent like himself. As if she was either from Japan, China or Korea.

"Sorry to disturb your work, but could you please tell me where I can find a fountain here so that I can wash these clothes?" Saito asked as he showed her a wooden bucket full of Louise's clothes in his hands.

The maid smiled kindly in response.

"Of course. Please follow me, sir." She then gestured at him to follow her lead as she walked into the courtyard from the walkway. Both of the teenagers walked in silence for several seconds as the maid guided Saito to one of the fountains, before she turned towards the boy. "I was wondering...Are you the familiar Miss Valliere summoned?"

Saito quickly turned to the maid walking next to his right side. "Uh, yes I am. My name is Hiraga Saito. What's yours?" Saito replied as he grinned, returning the courtesy the maid showed to him earlier.

"My name is Siesta and I work as a maid in service of Tristain Academy of Magic. It's nice to meet you Hee-ragasaito," Siesta said as she bowed her head slightly.

"Please, just Saito is fine," he answered, smiled sheepishly at her unusually polite demeanor. "So, how did you know I'm Louise's familiar? I don't remember I told you that."

"Words travel fast about each familiar the students had summoned during the ritual," she explained as they continued walking. "Every servant in the academy heard about Miss Valliere succeeded at summoning a familiar. A human familiar, which is very unusual and unique."

"I see. So...I guess you also heard about what happened at the courtyard? You know, that...monster that attacked everyone?" Saito immediately shuddered as memories of that very repulsive creature started to flashed back in his mind.

Siesta sounded and looked fearful as she began to talk. "Yeah, it must had been a truly horrifying experience, right? Everyone was baffled how a large undead monster with metal armor was able to get past the guards and entered the academy."

"Wait, were you there at the courtyard too?" He asked, his eyes slightly widen upon hearing this.

"No, I was at the kitchen at that time," she answered.

"Then how did you know about what that monster looked like? All the things you described about it were accurate."

"I heard it from the male servants that saw Mister de Siorac bringing the dead monster outside the academy to bury it. I think one of them spewed his lunch the moment they saw the corpse. Oh, we're here!"

"Here?" As Saito turned his sight in front of him, he saw a fountain which was just located at the base of the dormitory tower he just walked out. Saito was surprised because he did not noticed it was there when exited from the dorm, aside from that they were actually walking back towards the small tower Saito came from.

"Well, we're here. So I guess you can go back to work now," Saito said nonchalantly as they reached the destination, and he did a good job of not making himself looked stupid in front of the maid.

"Oh, don't worry! I can take care of that for you, Mister Saito." Siesta offered, as she took Louise's laundry from his hands.

The boy, on the other hand, just blinked and left open-mouthed at what just happened. "Eh? No, no! That won't be necessary, Siesta! Let me do it. I'm sure I've taken up your time with your work or something at this night," Saito earnestly told her as he waved his hands. The boy felt bad at letting her do the laundry by herself at night.

Siesta could not helped but giggled at his nervous demeanor before she placed the wooden basket to the ground. "It's alright, Mr. Saito. It is after all my duty as the academy's servant, and don't worry about the laundry. I'll deliver them to Miss Valliere's room in the morning."

He sighed in defeat—it was useless to continue arguing with her when the maid seemed very okay with it. "Ah, thank you, Siesta. I really appreciate it," Saito smiled amiably, before he bowed his head slightly. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you tonight Siesta."

"It's nice to meet you too, Mister Saito," Siesta replied as she gave him a warm smile.

Saito waved a good-bye to Siesta as the boy made his way back to the dorm, while the maid began her task of washing Louise's laundry. He felt very pleased to find himself another friend in a fantasy world in one night. It looked like he would not be alone in this magical place.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

Louise sat next to the desk writing a letter to her family of her success at summoning a familiar, as she waited for Saito to return from doing laundry below. However, she was not sure whether if it's right to tell them...that her familiar was a human, a commoner from a faraway land. A land of wondrous artifacts called 'technology' that looked so magical at first glance, yet were not at all magical in any way. But it also made Louise wonder whether there were nobles where he came from or not.

As she finished the last sentence in the letter, several knocks on the door of her room were produced and Saito's voice was heard from outside. "Louise, are you in there? Can I come in?"

"Oh yes! Come on in," Louise replied quickly as she put back her quill to its receptacle.

He opened the door and entered her room. As Saito looked at Louise sitting next to the table, he noticed there was a mattress with a pillow and a blanket on the floor next to Louise's bed. As far as Saito remembered, there was not a mattress there before he went out to wash her clothes.

"What's with the mattress? I don't remember there's one here when I first entered your room," Saito inquired.

Louise refused to make eye contact with Saito, seemingly uneasy or embarrassed as she twirled her fingers. "Well...Remember when I said that usually a creature summoned through the Summon Servant ritual was an animal of some sort?"

He nodded. "Yeah?"

"Um...Before the ritual began, I put a pile of straws there," Louise shyly pointed to the mattress where the floor was, "because I was expecting to have an animal familiar today. Instead, I got you and you're a human so...it wasn't appropriate for a noble to let a commoner sleeping on straws in cold night."

Saito could only blinked in surprise at Louise's statement. He didn't expect that he was about to sleep on the floor tonight. The boy could not believe how stupid he was for never thinking about it. Because if he did, Saito could had asked Louise earlier for a mattress or any good place to sleep for him.

Took his cue from Siesta earlier, Saito smiled politely at the girl for her unexpected act of kindness. "Th-thank you very much, Louise. That was very kind of you."

Startled by his reaction and words, she blushed a little as a result. "Y-yeah, whatever! Just go to sleep, it's already late," Louise said as she went into her bed.

After she pulled the blanket over her body, Louise spoke to Saito again. "Since you're my familiar, you sleep in my room from now on. As for supporting and giving you food, however, we'll discuss that tomorrow. Good night...Saito." She then rested her head on the pillow and went to sleep, before she quickly turned her body around with her back was facing at him.

 _Well, looks like I might have a lot of things to do tomorrow,_ he thought. Saito looked at the table clock and it was 8:45 PM; it was hardly considered as late back in his world.

As he produced his smartphone from his pocket and set the alarm to 5:50 in the morning, Louise snapped her fingers and the glow of the lamp died out. _The lamp is magical too? I guess that means there really is no need for electricity,_ Saito reasoned.

A shroud of darkness descended upon the room. The only source of light left in the room were Saito's brightly lit smartphone screen and the two moons shone down mysteriously outside of the window.

Now that his alarm was set and the phone was set to battery saving mode, he felt noticeably sleepy. He took off his shoes and went into the mattress.

"Good night, Louise," he said quietly yet audible enough for her to hear it, before he laid down his head on the soft pillow. Yet it's going to take a while for him to sleep as there were things still running through his head. Saito felt his heart beat a bit fast in his chest; he was worried. He was afraid.

Was he going to be stuck in this world forever? What were his chances of living to old age with stuffs like magic, dragons and griffons actually being real? Since he had no magic, what were the odds of surviving in a place like this?

 _I want to go home. I miss my room. I miss my family._ The feeling of homesickness was overwhelming.

 _...When will I be able to go back? Is there even a way to go back? I wonder if my family is worried about me right now,_ Saito reflected with sadness on his current situation. _I need to find some way of returning. But what should I do? Should I try running away from here? But then what? Maybe I'll try asking someone. But from what Louise told me earlier, nobody even knows that other worlds even exist, so there's no way they'll believe me._

Then he remembered about the wounded soldier earlier in the courtyard. Judging from the armor and weapons he possessed, that person must had been came from his world too. But from what he had seen, however, the equipment looked very high tech for someone from Saito's world.

Was that guy from a secret organization like in some science fiction shows? With access to advanced tech than the ones currently exist in the public and military? If so, which one? American? European? International? And what did the N7 symbol meant? Some kind of multinational black ops unit?

Saito thought deeply about it and it frustrated him because to put it simply—that guy raised more questions than answers.

But what about that monster?

There's no way that monster originated from this fantasy world. It's appearance, those armor plates, the tubes that looked like hydraulics. It's like some sort of robot made out of a human. Like a zombie cyborg. This world didn't even have electricity, there's no way something like that could exist here.

 _What if that thing came from my world? That guy looked like he knew that monster very well._ He shuddered with horror at the thought, because if such creature did exist back in his world, its existence was never revealed to the public.

What if he came from an organization tasked to combat those things? If it's true, if such monsters did 'live' in Saito's world...by Kami, he never felt more worried about his family's safety than ever before. His breathing, while silent, became ragged and his eyes began to moist a little at such notion. Saito never felt this much concern and fear in his life.

 _Mom, your son has arrived in a world where there are wizards. He'll not be able to attend school for quite some time, nor will he be able to study. Please forgive me...and please pray for my safety. Kami...please let my family be safe too. Please watch over them. Let me see them again,_ he prayed in his heart before he finally went to sleep.

And so began Saito's life as a familiar.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

 _Meanwhile, in the Healing Ward of the academy..._

Tabitha, who was sitting in bed, was drinking her glass of water as the academy's chief healer Miss Peronne was mending the remaining burnt skin on her left shoulder by casting a healing spell, which was enhanced through the use of medical potions. While the transparent liquid was poured down to her throat as she tilted the glass up, the water's taste was slightly sour as it was mixed with a couple of medical ingredients to accelerate the healing.

"There we go, Miss Tabitha. The damage where you got hit was greater than I first thought. My apologies, but there's permanent scaring around the area. However, you are well and healed right, though I recommend you rest here for tonight as a precaution. Alright?"

"Yes," Tabitha nodded as she tersely answered before taking the sleeping pill from the night stand, swallowing it and tucking herself in.

As Miss Peronne took the blue-haired girl's empty glass and walked towards a table full of potion bottles and parchments, she was greeted by Colbert who just entered the room.

"Hello, Miss Peronne! How's Miss Tabitha doing?" He asked. The healer was busy doing her business at the table and she did not have the time to turn around to see his face.

"Oh, she's doing just fine, Colbert. By the morrow after a second treatment, the outer most scarring will be a memory, but she can't return to her dorm at this moment. Miss Tabitha needs to rest here until morning and she has taken a sleep pill to ensure that. And don't call me 'Miss', alright? We're colleagues, not strangers here," Peronne said the last part grumbly as she sat down, began writing her report on the parchment.

Colbert could only scratched the back of his head sheepishly with that statement. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Saying 'sorry' doesn't get you anywhere in future relations unless you change that one habit of yours," she coldly replied as the healer continued writing the report, without even bothering to look at him.

Colbert could only laughed awkwardly at that, as he didn't know how to reply back at Peronne's statement. But seriously—what was wrong showing some courtesy with your fellow colleagues, especially with a woman like her, the bald mage would never know.

For now, Colbert focused his thought to his student's well being instead. From he heard from Peronne, Tabitha had mild to severe frost burnt skin on her back, upper arms and shoulders. Though the healer wasn't told the exact details, it's not hard to deduce the cause was ice magic given the amount of frost on Tabitha's skin and how cold to the touch the child must had felt. Colbert was there in the courtyard, he saw everything as Tabitha was struck by a glowing white sphere cast by the undead abomination's magic.

The bald teacher just could not believe it. He had seen frostbite before, a common happening especially in the northern most parts of Germania during the winter season. But that was the first time he saw an ice spell that could inflict that form of injury. Could it actually freeze a person stiff!?

How could such an ice spell like that even be conjured in the first place puzzled him. But he had no doubt it must had been a very intricate and powerful spell on its own, possibly even beyond what even a Square-class mage could cast. But if that's true, Colbert mentally shuddered over what would happen if there were more of its kind out there.

But there was one other thing he should also worry about...

"So how's our guest doing, Peronne?" He asked.

Colbert changed his gaze from Tabitha to another bed at the far corner. One that had a man in black armor lying unconsciously in it. Without his sword, without his helmet; the entire feature of this person's face was unlike Colbert had ever seen before. Very foreign, very exotic, very un-Halkeginian. Similar to Miss Vallière's human familiar, although both of them looked totally different to one another. Perhaps they came from different regions, separate countries? Looking closely, he had some similarities to the few traders he'd met that hail from the Rub' Al Khali but not by much.

And unlike Miss Vallière's familiar, who was just a commoner boy, this man was a warrior. An out of the ordinary and interesting warrior; his presence alone raised more questions than answers for Colbert and he was quite anxious to ask this man.

"Our patient here," she gestured the man in the bed, "is in good health. I've managed to stop the bleeding and sealed the entry wound. Do you know we've been trying to get his armor off of him? In the end we don't know how; we haven't see anything that resembles a hinge or a fastener at all. His armor isn't like anything I or anyone has seen before."

Colbert turned to take a good look at the black suit of armor's unique, unusual design. The thought of that man's sword on the research table in his room began to surface in his head. "Yes, yes it is."

"However, I've found something interesting on this man's wound when I took a closer look at it."

This grabbed Colbert's attention. "Really? What did you find?"

Peronne grabbed a clear vial on her desk and presented it in front of Colbert. Inside the vial was some kind of white pasty substance. "I found some kind of half-solid white paste around and inside the wound. Whatever this...salve is, I believe it helped seal the wound. And by seal, I mean a really tight one. It is surprisingly strong; I was having a hard time scraping some of it from his wound but I was lucky the salve was _breaking_ at the moment."

That last part made the professor very curious. "Wait, what do you mean by 'breaking'?"

"I mean, this salve is so strong and to break the sealant, I believe you would require an incredible..." Peronne paused a moment to find the good word for it, "...amount of blunt force impact. I can't say for certain how much but it would certainly be enough to break a number of ribs. Miraculously, this man has no such injuries."

The bald teacher was fascinated at such a wondrous medical substance. He speculated what kind of magical and exotic ingredients could be required to produce such remarkable and ground-breaking substances. The application of this salve would be significantly beneficial to all. Colbert truly could not wait for the man to awaken. The questions he wanted ask him about just formed in his mind one after the other.

Although when he thought about it again, Peronne should be the one to ask this man because this was within her area of medical specialty, not a technology partisan like himself.

"I've also discovered something else, Colbert," Peronne said. "Or rather I should say I couldn't discover something."

The professor was perplexed by the healer's cryptic words. "What could you not find?"

"There was no ball."

Colbert could only blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I've found no bullet inside that man's wound. You said he was shot, correct? I've checked repeatedly and I've found nothing at all," Peronne stated.

This was baffling for the veteran combat mage. Technically, he didn't see him get shot but the wound appeared to had been done by a gun. Could it had been magic? Was it caused by that undead abomination's magic? A spell that enabled you to kill a man with injuries similar to being shot with firearms? Colbert mentally shuddered at the frightening idea.

The bald teacher could not help but turn his gaze to the unconscious man in bed with a worried look and silent anxiety. _Just what kind of enemies did you challenge, my friend?_

"I apologies but I have no answer to that," Colbert replied as he returned his gaze to Peronne.

"Well, we'll just leave him here and wait until he awakes and recover from his injuries," she said with a sigh of exasperation before she turned her sight towards her colleague. "And that means it's time for you to leave this room NOW."

Colbert innocently blinked in surprise as he looked at Peronne as she now wore her usual stern look. "What? Really?"

"Yes, Colbert. It's getting late in the evening and I don't appreciate guests looming over my patients when they are recuperating. Especially nosy busybodies that can't comprehend the concept of being overbearing with their curiosity," she said as the healer shoved the bald professor out of the medical ward, not giving the man an opening to contest.

She snapped her fingers and the glow of the magical lamps in the room died out, leaving only the light of the two moons outside shimmered the dark room through the windows, and closed the doors for the night.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

 _The grassy field of the magic academy the courtyard was on fire. Flames of various size and intensity practically encircled the field like a cage. The heat was unbearable. Smoke filled the air, making it difficult to breathe while blocking much of the sun's light from overhead. And then there were bodies everywhere, littered around the entire courtyard._

 _The color drained from their faces as their blood flowed out into the grass and dirt. Some look like they were torn apart, others had their internal organs oozing out from their body in full display. Eyes looked like dull glass. The bodies consisted of people of different genders and ages—men and women; boys and girls; teachers and students; adults and teenagers._

 _And then there was that large, monstrous zombie cyborg standing in the center of the carnage with its metal armored back facing him. What's more was the two female bodies that laid beside its feet. He instantly recognized the two by looking at one of the girls' hair and the other's attire._

 _The girl's hair was pink, while the other girl's attire was that of a maid._

 _Though heavily obscured, he could see someone kneeling in front of the undead cyborg. The monster raised its left arm high in the air, its hand clenched into a fist. In a blur, it swung its arm down that followed with a loud smack and bone-crunching sound that broke through the noise of the surrounding inferno._

 _The poor victim practically flew off the ground a good five feet to the right from the force of impact. He could now see the face of the man._

 _It was that soldier in sci-fi armor._

 _His face was bloodied, bruised and had several fresh cuts all over it. He looked like he had been pummeled severely by that zombie. But what was disturbing was that the guy's eyes were still wide open and absent of any life in them. And those lifeless eyes were staring right at him. Piercing deep into his very soul._

 _The cyborg monster slowly turned around, coming face to face with him. He had seen how off-putting, revolting and nerve-racking the monster's appearance was the first time. Now, he's looking at it up close and the sight of the decaying abomination before him was far more horrifying than before._

 _Its eerie blue eyes, glowing bright from the dark depth of its eye sockets, were fixed at the pathetically vulnerable and young male human before it. The monster then let out a long, lifeless and inhuman moan before it knelt down and grabbed the wrists of both the pink hair girl and maid. It began to walk slowly towards him, dragging along both bodies with it._

 _As it approach the terrified boy, the undead abomination of science began to growl menacingly at him. It then let out a loud, formidable roar. So loud that the world shook violently._

 **"RAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!"**

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

"GAH!"

Saito shouted, bolting upright in his mattress wide eyed awake, with his heart pounding as he breathed heavily. Sweats trailing down his brow as he removed the sheets, it was too hot under them. Looking around the dimly moonlight lit room, everything was perfectly normal; he was back in Louise's room.

There were no burning courtyard, no dead bodies and no monsters here. And Louise was still sleeping.

All of that were just a nightmare, a byproduct from last day's terrifying incident and he didn't want to go through that kind of experience again. One, just one near-death experience was enough to leave a significant impact in him and he truly hoped that it's the last in his lifetime. Saito wasn't sure if he could take another dose; just another one may leave a deep scar to his psyche and he might not able to live like a normal person.

Saito quickly shoved the thought of that nightmare off and started thinking about the things he knew, things that always made him happy. And began feeling a little depress instead. All of this was tiring him physically and mentally and he needed to get some rest. As Saito was about laid down to his mattress...

"KYAAAAAHHHHH!"

He jumped as soon as he heard the scream, his heart felt like it was about burst out from his chest. Saito looked to the source and saw Louise who sat on her bed. Sweating a little, panting, wearing a terrified look on her face and...crying. Tears slipping down her cheeks as she looked on in pure fright.

Could it be possible she just had the same nightmare? Saito quickly got up from his mattress and sat down on Louise's bed beside her, both of his hands gripped her arms softly as he looked at the girl worryingly. She then started to sob quietly and such a pitiful sight before him mellowed his heart completely, bringing a 'painful' sensation to his chest.

"Calm down, Louise. Its alright? What happened?" He tenderly asked, with his hands rubbed both of her arms in a comforting manner.

"I'm sorry. I just...had a nightmare, that's all," she replied, still choking on sobs.

Louise wasn't used being embraced by someone other than her big sister Cattleya for comfort...and yet she felt relieved. The gnawing fear, the emotional turmoil inside her were dissipating, replacing them with warmth and safety. It wasn't as comforting and motherly as her Cattleya's, but her familiar's gesture was enough for Louise.

"There there. Are you feeling better?" Saito asked as his hand rubbed tenderly on Louise's arm. For some reason that he couldn't understand, he seemed to like the fragrance of her hair and it gave Saito a sense of peace that alleviated the small amount of anxiety he still had because of the nightmare earlier.

It was not too long before Louise calmed down and she still kept her head rested on his shoulder. "...Yes, yes I am," she murmured softly, sniffling a little.

"Are you sure, Louise?" Saito asked, he still had not released his embrace from her.

"I'm sure...And Saito?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you," she replied, Louise could not help but to smile a little as she said that.

"Anytime." Knowing that she had finally regained her composure made Saito smiled warmly as he looked out of the window and stared up to the moons. The boy was in a brief, yet deep thought, contemplating whether both of them have the strength and courage to move on and forget about what happened.

They were still alive and well, that was what truly important for them. Hopefully, tomorrow would erase the bad memories they had from the incident.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

 _Everything was just black and white whenever he saw it through his own perspective. In this case, he saw fire slowly burning the thick, broken pieces of a wooden table into charcoal on the grassy surface. An entire two stories high pre-fab house made of lightweight alloys and clear fiber glass was blown into smithereens. All that left was just a few of its frames still stood intact._

 _A lifeless human hand lied on the black and charred floor, with flames dancing to the wind surrounding the appendage. Its palm was facing upward, its fingers bent as though it was grabbing the air all around. A simple ring on its finger surprisingly still shine like new, unaffected by the destruction that had fallen upon its owner. A few small spots of blood could be seen around the wrist._

Well...this looks familiar. I haven't seen this for a long time.

 _A barn house and the grain field around it in the distance were also burning with near ferocity. Thick black smoke blanketed the once peaceful and beautiful afternoon sky into a more grim and depressing firmament._

 _The sight was then replaced with the controls of a skybike—the throttles, horns, clutches and the brightly lit speedometer screen. There were two hands gripping both throttles tightly and in the front, an entire small city far away in the horizon was in jeopardy and he was closing in._

 _Fires engulfed the top and mid floors of several high rises and skyscrapers. Some were speared by weapons of great force, leaving a massive hole all the way through. As he drove his skybike across an overpass, he looked at one of the lower buildings at his left, where several inhabitants were on the rooftop taking a peek at what was going on below._

 _A few seconds later, two shuttles of non-human design were hovering over that same rooftop. Each of the spacecrafts' side door was opened, revealing the occupants inside, fully armed and armored. Several people fell as they were hit by glowing bolts fired from inside the shuttles, electricity arched around their convulsing body._

 _One of the armed men in the shuttle directed his activated omni-tool at a female runner, launching a glowing net at her. The net caught onto the woman, it completely entangled her till she fell to the surface, screaming in absolute distress._

Yeah, it's official. I really haven't seen this for a while.

 _Running through a battered street, a long line of outlets and restaurants layed in ruins. Fearful, traumatic, agonizing screams could be heard echoing throughout the torn street. Many vehicles of all sizes littered the area; broken windows, hoods and doors were riddled with bullet holes. Some of the cars were burning, overturned and obliterated by an unknown blast._

...But why now? Why after all these years I'm seeing this right now?

 _More than a dozen dead bodies littered the street, pints of blood puddled around each of them. The ones that were in bright clothes were completely drenched in their own cruor. People of all ages. No exceptions; everyone was a fair game._

What is it You want to tell me from...this?

 _He took cover behind a skycar as bullets whizzed above his head, hitting the outer wall of a hair saloon next to him. He dashed forward, crouching as he generated a localized biotic barrier around his left arm, covering his head and upper body. A few ripples were formed around his barrier as bullets connected with the dark energy manifestation he produced. There was an alley nearby to his right and as he entered it, an explosion occurred a few meters behind him, destroying the corner of the wall. The blast knocked the biotic to the ground, but he recovered and kept running._

Should I resist and wake up? Or should I play along?

 _He ran for a few meters in the alleyway and turned right, where he found his vision overwhelmed by a blinding light and high pitch screech. And the next thing he knew, he saw something...probably a bullet shot through someone's chest. A young boy to be exact. Blood squirted out from the wound, the bright fabric around the hole was quickly saturated with his own sanguine fluid. He fell promptly to the tarmac._

Resist...or play along?

 _The boy's eyes, with tears flowing, were staring directly at him, muttering something silently to the biotic. His left hand reaching out before dropping to the hard tar surface. No movement, not even the slightest twitch of his fingers. And then...there was no sign of life in his brown eyes_.

So... Which one? It shouldn't be too hard to choose, isn't it?

 _He looked up to the clear blue sky, untouched by the smoke of death and destruction. There was a loud voice and some kind of ramble but they were heavily muffled and he couldn't tell what was being said. Thirty seconds...that was how long he had been looking at the sky. He slowly lowered his gaze and there in front of him, several meters away, he found himself staring at a man wearing a medium-type armor suit. Its design seemed a bit rugged with clear customization done and a paint job well outside of military regulation._

 _It's obviously not a standard Systems Alliance Marine armor he was looking at. But the most distinctive feature of that person's armor was his four circular viewing ports on the helmet. There was only one race in the galaxy that wore helmets with four viewing ports...and they were infamous for their culture regarding the caste system and_ slavery _._

Yeah... Maybe I should resist after all.

 _That armored batarian was armed with a shotgun, a sliding buttstock and a large, oversized barrel. So large that you could put your entire fist into the muzzle and shove your arm inside the barrel all the way to your elbow. A gun that just screamed_ krogan _. The gunman slowly raised the heavy weapon, aiming directly at the human biotic's head. Was he intent to capture or kill the biotic? Only Allah knew what was going on in that guy's head._

And maybe I should start getting used to this...again.

 _A bright flash instantly came out from the barrel._

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

Imran's eyes darted open as he sprang up from the bed. Cold sweat running down his face, his breathing was slightly heavy as he gazed up at the stone ceiling. He could feel his heart beating a few paces faster than normal. Right now, the were two things racing within his mind.

The first was the nightmare he just had would come back to haunt him once again. Every night starting from this would be a tiring battle and he would have to endure them again like he used to. There'd be no screams, no eyes would be opened wide and he would laid still in bed. Only his slightly faster heartbeat, his cold sweat and his tired mind.

The second thing was the more urgent matter: where the hell was he exactly? He didn't remember buildings on Earth with wooden ceilings, unless it was a house in the poorer slums or one of those old fashion wooden cabin meant for leisure. As his senses came back to normal he took in his surrounding better; the walls were made of stones that looks the same as the one in an old medieval castle and forts he and his team had taken shelter at the Austrian front.

Turning to the other side, he saw the little girl from earlier sleeping soundly on the adjacent bed. Imran recalled how she was struck by the Pariah's _Cryo Blast_ , her form turning rigid as the subatomic particle snap-froze her. Luckily, the cryogenic effect was temporary and she should feel better after a full nights rest. At least physically, how such an experience would end up affecting her in a psychological sense could only be discern by a professional.

He didn't feel angry. After months of witnessing so many losses against a seemingly unstoppable foe, you reached the point where you just had no more rage left inside. All he felt was disappointment. That he couldn't do anything, couldn't act fast enough to prevent the young child from having to go through such an experience.

His left hand moved to his right arm, where his omni-tool would be hooked into the armguard. An instinctive reflex more than anything, his desire to check the physical health of the girl overriding his conscious thoughts. To his surprise, the tool remained lock on his armor.

 _They didn't take it off?!_ Imran searched his belt and, to his surprise, found that all his equipment were still in the pockets he left them in. _They didn't take those off me as well?! Did they think it's best to have them kept near me? If that were true, why not just put it all on the table?_

Mulling these thoughts over helped regain his bearing as he took a second look around the room. It's clear its being used as an infirmary but where's the medical equipment: life support machines, MRI scanners, the medi-gel dispensers!? There weren't even any light fixtures or stands for proper illumination. Basic supplies and resources have been scarce since the Reapers came, but the situation wasn't critical enough to resort to-

 _...Is that an oil lamp?!_ Imran shockingly thought when he looked at the table on the side of his bed.

Rustling sheets shifted his focus back to his neighbor. The girl moving to her left side, still sound asleep.

Putting aside the logistical issues, Imran shifted around to position himself, sitting at the bed's edge and activated his 'tool to perform a medical scan on the girl. The diagnosis came up in detail on the screen. _Cryo damage reaches right where the epidermis layer meets the dermis layer. Damage was kept mostly on the surface. Makes sense; Pariahs capture people for conversion alive._

The screen narrowed and highlighted the scar on her back. Scarring was large but minor. It would heal overtime and with proper treatment, it'd be a thing of the past. That was assuming she'd survive to the end of the war to receive the treatment.

Trying not to delve into such thoughts, Imran preformed another, more general scan on the girl and the analysis came with a surprise.

"This doesn't make any sense!" He said out loud as he gawked at everything on screen, standing straight up from the bed. He realized that he may had voiced that too loud but it didn't seem to wake the girl at all. _Must be under sleep medication._

Still, it had to be some mistake. The omni-tool could have been damaged at some point without him noticing. Running a quick diagnosis showed that everything was working properly, so he tried again but the results where the same.

 _ **=Non-human=**_

Imran looked at the sleeping girl in confusion and back to the readout. His 'tool wasn't as precise as those dedicated models used by medics and scientists but it wouldn't make such a mistake like this. He scrutinized the reading and they just got odder. Her brain's neurochemistry was, on the whole, very wrong. This was by no means his field but the scans showed that there's very little comparison between the wiring of her brain and a human brain like his.

She's also emitting some undocumented form of energy radiation throughout her body. Invisible to the naked eye and, thankfully, completely harmless. On a physical note, her hair, which he assumed was dyed as some expression of the stereotypical rebellious teen, was actually her natural color.

As he was digesting the new information revealed to him, a slight sensation of pain came from his abdomen, instantly reminding the N7 Slayer of that gunshot wound he received from that Cannibal earlier. He performed a scan of his wound for a few seconds and the result came out. The wound had been sealed and was healing nicely, but the slug fragments were still lodged inside.

"They didn't extract the shrapnel?" He looked around the room again and concluded they didn't have the means to remove such small pieces of metal. Fortunately, the amount was too small for metal poison to affect him so he didn't have to worry about that.

 _I'm fine as can be. Everything else here is strange._ He took note of the old, wooden door and made up his mind as he went to leave. There had to be guards on look-out after what happened today and he hoped they would be able to answer his questions.

Not two step towards the exit, Imran came down on one knee grabbing the nearest bedpost with one hand while the other gripped his head. "Not...now," he groaned through his clenched teeth as he tried fighting the intense pain of his implant.

Having an L2 biotic implant meant he rated higher than most human biotics, almost to the scale of an asari, but it came at a price. Suffering the occasional splitting headache was better than what other L2 biotics went though, but this was the worse one yet.

Imran had learned to manage and deal with it over the years, and this one would be no different regardless of how painful. So he stood up and resume marching out the makeshift med-room. He needed answers now. He needed to get in contact with the Alliance forces as soon as possible.

 _Now I feel like throwing up._

He powered on, fighting through the pain to the wooden doors as they grew closer with each, stumbling step.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

The clock hanging on a wall showed past midnight. The students were all in their dorms as curfew demands. A curfew that was most lax till the events of today as the guards and professors patrolled the academy with a high degree of alert. A logical course of action, one that aggravated her.

Matilda de Sachsen-Gotha, better known as Longueville, walked the halls with stacks of papers, mostly reports, in hand after what had to be the longest day since she started here.

With the incident that happened during the Second Year's familiar summoning, steps and precautions had to be taken immediately to prevent a panic and stop word from spreading to the rest of the gather in the academy, which would in turn prevent any mention of this from going out and attracting unwanted attention. Of which Matilda wanted to avoid as much of.

It was very shocking in late afternoon when Colbert, along with a few teachers, barged into Osmond's office and told him about an attack that took place during the ritual. Colbert described the creature in as much detail as he could given his current state and none of it gave justice when she finally went to see it.

A head taller than all men in the academy, very muscular, purplish pale skin, skull-like face with rotten flesh, bright blue orbs in seemingly eyeless sockets, pieces of metals embedded all over the limbs and a deformed metal chestplate that was nailed onto its body. In all, it was a gruesome sight to behold.

But what was more unbelievable was how the undead monstrosity was capable of casting _powerful magic._

Matilda knew about necromancy. Everyone knew about it. Nobles and commoners alike. One of the most infamous and immoral forms of magic disdained in all circles with anything related to such work scoured for and destroyed. So much so that such craft had practically fallen into myth and legend. Though she had heard rumors and whispers of mages delving into the art, but all in passing as such ventures were not something she'd want to be involved with. Yet that creature was no amateur work.

Whoever created it was a master of the wicked craft in a way she couldn't even begin to comprehend. And it somehow appeared in the courtyard.

No one was killed and only two injured but that didn't concern her. What was concerning was how the creature could somehow withstand spells like it was a minor nuisance if what she heard was correct. Colbert set that thing on fire, the scorch marks and soot stain clear on the corpse, yet it walked out with nothing else.

 _Could my golem be able to kill that thing?_ That train of thought didn't matter anymore.

The monstrosity was killed by an unknown warrior in black armor that came out of nowhere just like the monster. Colbert gave a detailed report on how the warrior defeated the monster with a sword that appeared magical and fighting skills the likes of which he hadn't seen or heard of. And the warrior did it all with a deep wound in his abdomen.

His description of the man made one thing clear. Unusual skin and hair, along with unique his facial structure. Clear traits not found in any native Halkeginian. Could he be from Rub' al Khali? From the few immigrants she had bartered with, the physical distinction was clear as day. She wouldn't know till she saw the man herself.

Right now she had to tackle another dilemma. As the academy was on high alert, the patrol route had changed. Months of careful planning, memorizing the guard's pattern and subtle influence on who went where had all been thrown out. Forcing her to start from the beginning. Fortunately, being in her position as secretary, she didn't have to worry about others being suspicious of her late nigh jaunts through the hall. Everyone just assumed she's archiving reports for the headmaster.

 _It's far too tense now. I'll just have to wait until everyone reverts back to their lax routine,_ she thought as she grind her teeth while biting her thumbnail in agitation.

Matilda was so absorbed to her thought that she forgot to focus what right in front of her as the door on her left opened out and hit her in the head.

 **-##-##-##-##-##-##-##-**

 **THUD!**

"Kyaa!" Matilda let out a little shriek as she fell on her bottom, the contents in her grasp spread throughout the floor as she let go so her hands could help cushion her tumble.

Once she recovered, she noticed the person who opened the door—the warrior who slew the creature was now on the floor on all fours with a look of agony upon his face.

"Are you well?" She inquired instantly as she got up and move to the man. She could make out his features in the torch light. He had some resemblance to those of the Rub' al Khali but not exactly. She couldn't be sure since the number of people she had actually met from that land could be counted on one hand.

Next thing of note was his armor. The blue luminescence clearly indicated at some form of magic but she also noted that the material wasn't metal, not entirely. There were clear metal parts but they were few with the majority seemingly composed of ceramic but not like any she had ever seen or felt.

"It's just a migraine. I've dealt worse," he said with a sickly croak as she helped him up on his feet. It must be a most intense headache as his face still remained in agony as beads of sweat coated his brow. Though how much of that was from the head pain or his injuries? He proceeded to push her aside gently and tried to make his way down the hall. "I have to go," he uttered, only to lost his footing and leaned against the wall.

"Sir!" Matilda exclaimed as she grabbed his arms to keep him standing. "Sir, it's the middle of the night and you are in no state to stand, let alone walk. You need to rest, to let your injuries heal."

"I'll be fine... I've to go—" He stopped mid-sentence as he clenched his stomach as if trying to keep his internals from breaking free.

"Sir, please." Matilda practically pleaded as she managed to edge the man back into the room. A feat no doubt thanks to his delirious state as he made attempts to break free from her hold. Even so, it was quite evident the man possessed great strength and endurance to fight like he's trying to, despite the trauma his body had been through.

Just as she reached the bed he was left in, the only one that shows usage besides the other one with the young girl in, the man broke away from Matilda's hold...and proceeded to fall to his knees and expel his contents inside a nearby bucket. From what she could hear, it didn't seem like there was much to empty out.

Once he finished, he rested himself into a more comfortable position, sitting on the floor with his back against the bed frame while taking deep, rapid breaths with his head pulled back to stare at the ceiling.

"Whoever tended me..." he started before taking three more large breaths of air, "...did a very poor job at it."


End file.
